I have now been in Germany for a month. I can't believe it. That went by so much faster than I ever would have expected. I thought this would be a good time to post about a couple of the differences between the US and Germany that I've discovered in that time.
Often people speak of culture shock when they head to a new country. I think that shock is too strong a word. It's more like that funny tingling feeling you get when you stick your tongue on a 9 volt battery. It's kind of fun but also kind of wrong at the same time. As much as I would like for this post to be a smooth narrative, I'm just going to post a bunch of random stuff.
Those unsmiling teutonic Germans. I think that the most common misconception about Germans is that they are very serious and they rarely smile. I would say that in general Germans tend to be a little more reserved than Americans, especially with strangers. Once you know them a bit they are very friendly and definitely smile and laugh. Personally I'm having a fantastic time sharing the office of one of my German colleagues who is surprisingly chatty. It's a good thing that I'm getting along so well with him because we get onto the tram at the same stop in the morning in Darmstadt, spend the majority of the day in the office together and then often end up leaving at the same time in the evening. I think that there are people's shadows that get more alone time.
Those insanely long German words. We all know about those German words that seem to go on for paragraphs. I finally figured out why they are so absurdly long. If the Germans want to say something like the National Wildlife Foundation, it's written Nationalwildlifefoundation. They just smush it all together. Also they have a word for everything. I'm not kidding. Everything! These were my two favorites recently. While waiting for the tram one morning, my officemate explained that during the summer they had to repair the tram tracks and so there were buses substituting for the trams.
"It's called Schienenersatzverkehr."
Me: "Huh?!"
"Schienenersatzverkehr. Rail replacement bus service. One word."
Me: "Of course."
"Schienen is rail, ersatz is replacement and verkehr is transportation or traffic. What do you call that in English?"
"Trains broken and we all have to taking the fricking bus. Many words."
The second word came about because we were in the office and we noticed some digging of trenches and filling of trenches outside the office window and my officemate said, "Das ist Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme."
Me: "Huh?!" My eloquence in English is not at its best in these moments.
"Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme. Work creating scheme. One word."
Me: "Of course."
I then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to say that word, and my officemate spent the rest of the afternoon laughing himself silly at my many attempts.
The Radio. This may seem like an odd thing to mention, but there is really no theme for radio stations. I discovered this on my through the Rhine Valley when I listened to Led Zepplin, Enya, Lady Gaga, and Italian techno in rapid succession. I checked back with my colleagues and they confirmed that rock stations will play ALL kinds of rock. If you're in the mood for some classic rock, best to mix your own CD and bring it along.
Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. The one thing about the US that I really miss is free water with your meal and copious amounts of beverages. I like to be well hydrated and I find it strange that I must pay almost as much for water as beer. And the beverage containers are all so tiny. It's like the entire populace is prepping for a trip to Arrakis. Boggles the mind.
Okay, that's what I have so far for general life in Germany. I'll try to remember to write down more stuff as I go.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Berlin II
Day two in Germany was not unlike a Roman march in its pacing (brutal) and number of breaks (one). Tourism under a time crunch is perhaps not the best way to soak up the atmosphere of a city or country, but it does get you through the major sites. Since I am living in Germany for months, I feel like I have ample opportunity to soak up atmosphere while in the city of Darmstadt. As an aside, I have just learned that Darmstadt translates as Colon City. The name derives from the Darm River that apparently resembles the human intestines. Lovely!
Back to Berlin. I woke bright an early and was out of my hotel at 8:30 and on a tram to East Berlin, specifically Hackescher Markt. I had a lovely little breakfast of chocolate croissant and tea while watching people setup fruit and vegetable stalls. Then it was off to hardcore sightseeing.
First stop was the Nikolai District, the center of Medieval Berlin. The picture on the right is the Marien Church from 1270 and in the background the TV Tower. The juxtoposition of modern and medieval just screamed for a picture.
This is the Nikolai Church from the 13th century with its distinctive twin spires. However since I arrived so early in the morning, I did not have the opportunity to go inside. Instead I hopped over the Spree River to Museuminsel, or Museum Island. There are five museums on Museum Island, but I only had a chance to visit two of them.
These two reliefs are from the 2nd century BC Pergamon Altar.
Originally these reliefs completely encircled a huge altar with a total perimeter of 113 meters. It represented one enormous and stunnning display of Greek artistry. The subject is the battle between the Olympian gods and the Titans. The top frieze shows Zeus battling Titans with his characteristic lightning blot in his right hand. The bottom frieze represents Athena with her shield and Nike on the top right. Gaia can be seen rising from the ground. I have several more photos of friezes, but I thought these two were the most impressive. I read that this all came from the same workshop as The Laokoon Group sculpture, which is absolutely one of my favorite of Greco-Roman pieces.
Also noteworthy from this museum was Ishtar's Gate in Ancient Babylon as seen here in this amazingly vivid blue.
And knowing how much my mother likes mosaics, this one is for her:
After this museum I also had a chance to see the famous bust of Nefertiti. We could not take any pictures in that room, but I can assure you it was as amazing and breathtaking in person as you might expect.
At that point I left the museums and scarfed down a Currywurst, and then headed over to the Berliner Dome on left. If you are of an athletic temperment you can have the distinct honor of climbing all 270 steps to the top of the dome where you have another amazing view of Berlin. Yes, I hiked all the way up there, and that is where I saw this on the street below....
I knew that there was an anti-atomic energy protest planned in Berlin that day, but I had not realized that I was currently on the planned demonstration route. These are just a few of the many, many police officers that were lining the surrounding streets of Berlin. I decided that I should go somewhere else in the city now.
I wandered the streets of Berlin. I saw Checkpoint Charlie and here on the left is the remnants of the Berlin wall. Below it where all the people are standing is a history of Berlin from the beginning of the Nazi regime until the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany. Incidentally, the 20th anniversary of the reunification of Germany is on Saturday! And I will be in Prague. I'm really not very good at planning my vacations.
Anyway, after hiking through here and past the ultra-modern Sony Center, I decided that I needed to stop and get some caffeine into my system before I keeled over. I was desperately searching for some cute little European cafe, but seemed to be unable to find anything other than a Dunkin Donuts. Yes, they have DD in Berlin. This was actually worth mentioning because the racks of donuts in Germany appear as if a day-glo rainbow had exploded on them. I mean, there were colors there that would have been painful on clothing but were deeply disturbing on food. Also at the DD were the remains of the atomic energy protestors.
As you can see in the photo they came armed with banners and vuvuzelas. Oh, the humanity!!
There isn't too much more to share about Berlin. I did some more sightseeing the next day, but mostly around some lovely parks in West Berlin. The last thing I wanted to share was a picture of this bombed out church. When I first came into Berlin by train, I saw this building and couldn't figure out if this was some really interesting modern architecture thing, or just the remains of a bombed out church. Funny how difficult that is to tell apart. Anyway, I checked my book and sure enough it's bomb damage. They wanted to keep it as a reminder rather than repair it. 
And one last photo to prove that I was actually in Berlin!
Back to Berlin. I woke bright an early and was out of my hotel at 8:30 and on a tram to East Berlin, specifically Hackescher Markt. I had a lovely little breakfast of chocolate croissant and tea while watching people setup fruit and vegetable stalls. Then it was off to hardcore sightseeing.
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| Nikolai District |
These two reliefs are from the 2nd century BC Pergamon Altar.
Originally these reliefs completely encircled a huge altar with a total perimeter of 113 meters. It represented one enormous and stunnning display of Greek artistry. The subject is the battle between the Olympian gods and the Titans. The top frieze shows Zeus battling Titans with his characteristic lightning blot in his right hand. The bottom frieze represents Athena with her shield and Nike on the top right. Gaia can be seen rising from the ground. I have several more photos of friezes, but I thought these two were the most impressive. I read that this all came from the same workshop as The Laokoon Group sculpture, which is absolutely one of my favorite of Greco-Roman pieces. 
Also noteworthy from this museum was Ishtar's Gate in Ancient Babylon as seen here in this amazingly vivid blue.  |
| Close up of the lions on the gate |
After this museum I also had a chance to see the famous bust of Nefertiti. We could not take any pictures in that room, but I can assure you it was as amazing and breathtaking in person as you might expect.
Anyway, after hiking through here and past the ultra-modern Sony Center, I decided that I needed to stop and get some caffeine into my system before I keeled over. I was desperately searching for some cute little European cafe, but seemed to be unable to find anything other than a Dunkin Donuts. Yes, they have DD in Berlin. This was actually worth mentioning because the racks of donuts in Germany appear as if a day-glo rainbow had exploded on them. I mean, there were colors there that would have been painful on clothing but were deeply disturbing on food. Also at the DD were the remains of the atomic energy protestors.
There isn't too much more to share about Berlin. I did some more sightseeing the next day, but mostly around some lovely parks in West Berlin. The last thing I wanted to share was a picture of this bombed out church. When I first came into Berlin by train, I saw this building and couldn't figure out if this was some really interesting modern architecture thing, or just the remains of a bombed out church. Funny how difficult that is to tell apart. Anyway, I checked my book and sure enough it's bomb damage. They wanted to keep it as a reminder rather than repair it. 
And one last photo to prove that I was actually in Berlin!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Berlin Part I
Since das Wetter ist scheisse in Germany this weekend, I'm going to start updating my blog to fill you all in on my weekend in Berlin. Considering the amount of pictures and places I visited in two very long days I will probably be breaking this up into two blog posts.
First of all Berlin was wonderful! I really wish that I had had another day there to explore more, but with limited vacation days here in Germany I'm trying to squeeze in as much as possible. In true European fashion I traveled to Berlin by train. It took about four and a half hours, maybe a little more because we temporarily broke down in Goettingen. A little aside here...When I was traveling in the Netherlands by train several years ago, the announcements were always given in their entirety in four different languages, Dutch, German, English, and French. The announcements on the Deutsche Bahn are extremely detailed in German. They provide information on the next station name, the numbers of the connecting trains, and the track number where each can be found. The announcement in English goes something like this, "Hello. Welcome to Deutsche Bahn. This is the train to Berlin. Uh...Thank you for traveling with Deutsche Bahn. Good-Bye." The uh is always in there, as if the announcer takes a second to decide whether to translate the whole message for us and just decides, "oh, screw it," and we get the extremely truncated message. Fortunately for me, I knew the words for train, der Zug, and broke, kaput, and was able to figure out from the conversations around me why we seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time in the Goettingen train station. The good news was that it was only about a half hour delay and then we were back on track to Berlin.
Berlin is connected by a fantastic train system, which is relatively easy to figure out once you hunt down the appropriate map for your line. My hotel was very nice, as you can see from the picture below.
As one might expect from Europe, the room is small and not bubbling over with amentities, but it was clean and comfortable. Also, I have discovered that they do not use sheets in Germany. You have a fitted sheet and a comfortable. At first I thought this was just an oddity of one or two hotels and my apartment, but having now stayed in four different hotels, I have come to the conclusion that they like it sheetless in Germany.
After dumping everything in my hotel room, I dashed out to begin sightseeing. First stop was the Reichstag, Germany's parliament. You can see it here on the right with the giant dome on top. The river in front is the Spree. And below is a picture from inside that dome. It's like something out of 2001. While you move along the walkway up to the top, you listen to an audio guide that gives you an introduction to Berlin, pointing out the major buildings around the East Berlin area. Fantastic first stop.
After the walk around the dome of the Reichstag, I headed over to Brandenburg Tuer, which is modeled on the Propylaeum of the Parthenon.
This is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. As you can see from the photos, it strongly resembles a graveyard or series of crypts. In some areas, like here, they are quite short, but as you walk through the ground slopes and the stone tomb-like structures are close to ten feet tall. Underneath this is the museum to the murdered Jews. As one would expect, it's a very sobering museum, describing the increasing ferocity with which the Nazi regime persecuted the Jews and Roma of Europe. Perhaps the most interesting part of this museum was the conversation that a group of us struck up. At the very first picture where the caption explains about the initial policy of harrassment, a woman from the US jabbed her finger at the picture saying, "This! This is how it starts!" She was from Arizona and had become disgusted with the constant harrassment of anyone Latino by the police. It is essentially a goverment sponsered discrimination and harrassment policy and from her perspective looked alarmingly close to the pictures we were all looking at in the museum. This in turn led to a discussion of Sarkozy expelling the Roma and the Islamophobia that has become increasingly prelevant through Europe and even the US. It was all a rather poignant reminder that these things can happen all too easily happen again.
First of all Berlin was wonderful! I really wish that I had had another day there to explore more, but with limited vacation days here in Germany I'm trying to squeeze in as much as possible. In true European fashion I traveled to Berlin by train. It took about four and a half hours, maybe a little more because we temporarily broke down in Goettingen. A little aside here...When I was traveling in the Netherlands by train several years ago, the announcements were always given in their entirety in four different languages, Dutch, German, English, and French. The announcements on the Deutsche Bahn are extremely detailed in German. They provide information on the next station name, the numbers of the connecting trains, and the track number where each can be found. The announcement in English goes something like this, "Hello. Welcome to Deutsche Bahn. This is the train to Berlin. Uh...Thank you for traveling with Deutsche Bahn. Good-Bye." The uh is always in there, as if the announcer takes a second to decide whether to translate the whole message for us and just decides, "oh, screw it," and we get the extremely truncated message. Fortunately for me, I knew the words for train, der Zug, and broke, kaput, and was able to figure out from the conversations around me why we seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time in the Goettingen train station. The good news was that it was only about a half hour delay and then we were back on track to Berlin.
Berlin is connected by a fantastic train system, which is relatively easy to figure out once you hunt down the appropriate map for your line. My hotel was very nice, as you can see from the picture below.
After the walk around the dome of the Reichstag, I headed over to Brandenburg Tuer, which is modeled on the Propylaeum of the Parthenon.  |
| Brandenburg Tuer |
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| This is a memorial to murdered members of the government. These men opposed Hitler's rise to power and were some of the first to die. On each slate is one of their names. |
This is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. As you can see from the photos, it strongly resembles a graveyard or series of crypts. In some areas, like here, they are quite short, but as you walk through the ground slopes and the stone tomb-like structures are close to ten feet tall. Underneath this is the museum to the murdered Jews. As one would expect, it's a very sobering museum, describing the increasing ferocity with which the Nazi regime persecuted the Jews and Roma of Europe. Perhaps the most interesting part of this museum was the conversation that a group of us struck up. At the very first picture where the caption explains about the initial policy of harrassment, a woman from the US jabbed her finger at the picture saying, "This! This is how it starts!" She was from Arizona and had become disgusted with the constant harrassment of anyone Latino by the police. It is essentially a goverment sponsered discrimination and harrassment policy and from her perspective looked alarmingly close to the pictures we were all looking at in the museum. This in turn led to a discussion of Sarkozy expelling the Roma and the Islamophobia that has become increasingly prelevant through Europe and even the US. It was all a rather poignant reminder that these things can happen all too easily happen again. That was my last stop of the day before dinner and heading back to my hotel. I will pick up my second day in Berlin in the next post.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Pictures from Freiburg
A few photos from Freiburg
My IKEA dorm room at my hotel in Freiburg
These are called Baechle and they run throughout the old town of Freiburg. Rumor has it that if you fall into one of these you will marry a Freiburgian. I assiduously avoided falling into these.
Freiburg has an assortment of these odd statues hanging off buildings. That enormous lump on its throat is a goiter. Ewwwww.
Those strange circles etched into the side of the cathedral denoted the accepted size of bread. There are a number of such markings on this cathedral, covering the size of baskets and building material.
Yep that statue on the top left is sticking its butt out and that is one of the drain pipes. Quite a sense of humor they had in the Middle Ages!
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| While the room was nothing special, the street outside was absolutely lovely. |
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| How come our Burger Kings don't look like this? |
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| The famous but deadly alligators of Freiburg |
Freiburg has an assortment of these odd statues hanging off buildings. That enormous lump on its throat is a goiter. Ewwwww.
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| In the window of a major department store. I think this speaks for itself. |
Baden-Baden Pictures
A couple photos from Baden-Baden that I thought were cute.
This church is heated entirely by the hot springs below Baden-Baden. Because of the high humidity in the church, the pews have to be replaced every 50 years and no artwork in the church is original. It is all copies.
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| Streets of Baden-Baden |
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| Church in Baden-Baden |
This church is heated entirely by the hot springs below Baden-Baden. Because of the high humidity in the church, the pews have to be replaced every 50 years and no artwork in the church is original. It is all copies.
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| Adorable picture of Polish Girls in ethnic dress |
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| The Trinkhalle |
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| View from the Trinkhalle |
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Photos of the Rhine Valley
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| Rheinfels Castle in St. Goar Rhine Valley |
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| Rheinfels Interior Walls |
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| Rhine Valley from Rheinfels Castle |
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| St Goar. As you can see there is very little room for the town on the banks of the Rhine |
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| Castle in Bacharach |
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| Atles Haus Oldest House in Bacharach Built in the 13th Century |
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| Just a cute little street in Bacharach I wanted to share |
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| Bacharach |
Sunday, September 12, 2010
My Baring trip to Baden- Baden
I have to start my description of this trip with the stop at the gas station (Tankstelle) first thing in the morning. I realize that when you rent a car there are always those moments of frustration where you glare around the seat mumbling, "Now where in this fricking car did they hide the _______." For me that object was the release to the gas tank. I looked all around the seat, around the dashboard, in the center console with no luck. I pulled out the car instruction manual, which is entirely in German, and tried to find something in there with the word door (Tuer). No luck. So I went over to the pair of guys at the next pump and pitifully asked them for help in my very broken German. They were such dears. The two came over and looked through the manual and all through the car. We hit every button that we could fine. We opened the trunk, the hood, the windows, adjusted all the mirrors, washed all the windshields, and even had the car make up a cappucino. Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea. At some point in the middle of this operation one of the guys pushed against the edge of the gas tank door, thinking that maybe if you pushed it in, it would pop back open. No luck there. However after about fifteen minutes, we went back over to the gas tank door and the same guy pushed against the opposite side of the little door and VOILA, it just hinged right open. TA DA! We all had a collective moment of, "Ahhhhhhh." I thanked them profusely and waved them away.
So began the trip to Baden-Baden.
Baden-Baden (or bath-bath in German) is just a lovely little town. Hildegard (my navigator) did a fantastic job of leading me there, even managed to guess when I needed to exit the tunnel despite having lost GPS signal. The town has this lovely little stream and shopping district in it that makes for a wonderful day of wandering about. Also it turned out that they were having a Musiktreff, which seemed to be groups of mostly high school age students from a variety of Eastern European countries performing songs and dance of their respective cultures. (Except for the Bulgarians who brought a band and baton twirlers.) I saw two groups of Polish girls singing and dancing, including the most adorable little girls whose pictures I took and will post later because the outfits were so interesting. The Polish singing group performed an assortment of songs including a Polish verion of Doe a Deer as well as the Scottish folk song Bring back my bonnie to me. Scottish one was done in English. The best of the bunch was the Russian dancers who were doing all that jumping and kicking and acrobatics that one normally associates with Russian dance. Just fantastic. And somewhere in the midst of all this was one woman who performed a belly dancing routine. I'm not sure where she was from, or how she fit in, but I will say all guys wandering through at that time stopped to watch.
I had a chance to watch so much of this because I stopped for lunch at a restaurant right in front of the stage. I had a very tasty and likely very rich Spaetzle with 0.5L of beer. That left me feeling rather pleasant and very brave, so off I went to the Baths.
So I cast off my American Puritinism and went for the totally naked bathing experience. Fortunately Saturday was one of the days where the sexes are (mostly) segregated. The whole thing was luxurious. All the rooms have this Roman look to them with tile and columns and interesting mosaics to ponder as you soak. Onto the bath itself. You start out with a short shower so you're all wet and then you go into the first warm room. This one was about 45C. You put your towel down on the lounge chair and veg for the recommended 15 minutes. Then you head to the hot room, which I think was like 60C. That is only 5 minutes. After that is a second brief shower. If you happen to be a person that sweats profusely, I would imagine that this is so you can rinse yourself off. If you're like me, you use this as a chance to cool down a little. The following room is the true sauna room. They explain on a sign on the wall that this is the only sauna room in the europe (possibly the world) that is heated solely by natural hot springs. The air had the most unusual scent. It was almost minty. Anyway, as you sit in the room, there is water cascading over this little waterfall against one wall, presumably heating the room and creating all the humidity. Then comes the array of baths. First you begin with this wonderfully warm bath, then a slightly cooler whirpool bath, then an even cooler bath (that's in the mixed sex pool, although no one else was in there with me) and finally you dunk yourself very quickly into a bath of 18C (which is COLD) and you're done. The attendants wrap you up in a towel and then lead you to the resting room where they swaddle you up and let you rest for half a hour. As they wrapped me in the blankets, I was trying to figure out what was the best metaphor for this, swaddled baby? mummy?, but as I emerged after my thirty minutes I realized what it was: a crysalis. And let me tell you this was one butterfly that did not want to rejoin the outside world.
I did. Reluctantly. The whole experience took me about two decadent hours.
After another hour or so of enjoying the sites of Baden-Baden, I headed off to Staufen to my hotel for the night... or so I thought.
I knew that I was in trouble when Hildegard kept trying to drive me into a river to get to my hotel. I think she knew then that it was a doomed quest. Suffice to say that I had to park the car in a lot and then walk into the center of town to find the hotel because that whole area is pedestrian only. I found the hotel and also found that they had absolutely no record that I had made a reservation, even though I had called them only two days earlier. The concierge did try to help (somewhat) by calling the neighboring hotels but they were all completely booked as well. It's amazing how quickly you can go from mildly frustrated at not being able to initially find the hotel to completely panicked because it turns out you don't have one!
I pulled out my guidebook and started calling the hotels in Freiburg, which is where I was planning on going the following day anyway. The last hotel on my list had exactly ONE room left. I made my reservation, hopped into my car and drove to Freiburg with an exact address of my hotel and a vague explanation as to the requisite parking deck's location. Hildegard pulled through here and drove me right past the parking deck. As I pulled into my parking spot, she informed me that I had reached my destination. Not something you expect to here inside a parking deck, but clearly hotel and parking deck were very close.
Upon exiting the garage, two different people stopped me to ask if I needed help finding something. Seriously, I must have looked crazed with panic/stress.
Hotel room was interesting. It was a sort of modern IKEA dorm look. After about an hour or so the surge of panicked stress that had hit me from the lack of hotel was finally beginning to subside. It's completely unfair that stress should hit so quickly and easily and yet not subside as fast.
Freiburg was very cute old town. It's hard to explain, so I think that I'll wait until I can show some pictures because it is best left to showing some of the interesting houses as well as funny gargoyles on the church.
This weekend is Berlin. I might update in the middle of the week with some observations about Germany vs US. Best left to a separate little list.
Hoping you all had a lovely weekend as well!
So began the trip to Baden-Baden.
Baden-Baden (or bath-bath in German) is just a lovely little town. Hildegard (my navigator) did a fantastic job of leading me there, even managed to guess when I needed to exit the tunnel despite having lost GPS signal. The town has this lovely little stream and shopping district in it that makes for a wonderful day of wandering about. Also it turned out that they were having a Musiktreff, which seemed to be groups of mostly high school age students from a variety of Eastern European countries performing songs and dance of their respective cultures. (Except for the Bulgarians who brought a band and baton twirlers.) I saw two groups of Polish girls singing and dancing, including the most adorable little girls whose pictures I took and will post later because the outfits were so interesting. The Polish singing group performed an assortment of songs including a Polish verion of Doe a Deer as well as the Scottish folk song Bring back my bonnie to me. Scottish one was done in English. The best of the bunch was the Russian dancers who were doing all that jumping and kicking and acrobatics that one normally associates with Russian dance. Just fantastic. And somewhere in the midst of all this was one woman who performed a belly dancing routine. I'm not sure where she was from, or how she fit in, but I will say all guys wandering through at that time stopped to watch.
I had a chance to watch so much of this because I stopped for lunch at a restaurant right in front of the stage. I had a very tasty and likely very rich Spaetzle with 0.5L of beer. That left me feeling rather pleasant and very brave, so off I went to the Baths.
So I cast off my American Puritinism and went for the totally naked bathing experience. Fortunately Saturday was one of the days where the sexes are (mostly) segregated. The whole thing was luxurious. All the rooms have this Roman look to them with tile and columns and interesting mosaics to ponder as you soak. Onto the bath itself. You start out with a short shower so you're all wet and then you go into the first warm room. This one was about 45C. You put your towel down on the lounge chair and veg for the recommended 15 minutes. Then you head to the hot room, which I think was like 60C. That is only 5 minutes. After that is a second brief shower. If you happen to be a person that sweats profusely, I would imagine that this is so you can rinse yourself off. If you're like me, you use this as a chance to cool down a little. The following room is the true sauna room. They explain on a sign on the wall that this is the only sauna room in the europe (possibly the world) that is heated solely by natural hot springs. The air had the most unusual scent. It was almost minty. Anyway, as you sit in the room, there is water cascading over this little waterfall against one wall, presumably heating the room and creating all the humidity. Then comes the array of baths. First you begin with this wonderfully warm bath, then a slightly cooler whirpool bath, then an even cooler bath (that's in the mixed sex pool, although no one else was in there with me) and finally you dunk yourself very quickly into a bath of 18C (which is COLD) and you're done. The attendants wrap you up in a towel and then lead you to the resting room where they swaddle you up and let you rest for half a hour. As they wrapped me in the blankets, I was trying to figure out what was the best metaphor for this, swaddled baby? mummy?, but as I emerged after my thirty minutes I realized what it was: a crysalis. And let me tell you this was one butterfly that did not want to rejoin the outside world.
I did. Reluctantly. The whole experience took me about two decadent hours.
After another hour or so of enjoying the sites of Baden-Baden, I headed off to Staufen to my hotel for the night... or so I thought.
I knew that I was in trouble when Hildegard kept trying to drive me into a river to get to my hotel. I think she knew then that it was a doomed quest. Suffice to say that I had to park the car in a lot and then walk into the center of town to find the hotel because that whole area is pedestrian only. I found the hotel and also found that they had absolutely no record that I had made a reservation, even though I had called them only two days earlier. The concierge did try to help (somewhat) by calling the neighboring hotels but they were all completely booked as well. It's amazing how quickly you can go from mildly frustrated at not being able to initially find the hotel to completely panicked because it turns out you don't have one!
I pulled out my guidebook and started calling the hotels in Freiburg, which is where I was planning on going the following day anyway. The last hotel on my list had exactly ONE room left. I made my reservation, hopped into my car and drove to Freiburg with an exact address of my hotel and a vague explanation as to the requisite parking deck's location. Hildegard pulled through here and drove me right past the parking deck. As I pulled into my parking spot, she informed me that I had reached my destination. Not something you expect to here inside a parking deck, but clearly hotel and parking deck were very close.
Upon exiting the garage, two different people stopped me to ask if I needed help finding something. Seriously, I must have looked crazed with panic/stress.
Hotel room was interesting. It was a sort of modern IKEA dorm look. After about an hour or so the surge of panicked stress that had hit me from the lack of hotel was finally beginning to subside. It's completely unfair that stress should hit so quickly and easily and yet not subside as fast.
Freiburg was very cute old town. It's hard to explain, so I think that I'll wait until I can show some pictures because it is best left to showing some of the interesting houses as well as funny gargoyles on the church.
This weekend is Berlin. I might update in the middle of the week with some observations about Germany vs US. Best left to a separate little list.
Hoping you all had a lovely weekend as well!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Rhine Valley
My update on my Rhine Valley trip is definitely overdue since I'm almost back around to the weekend again. Can't believe how fast these weeks move in Germany.
First thing about the Rhine Valley is that when I was planning my trip, I couldn't quite figure out why it would take me an hour and half to reach a destination that was only 77km away. I'd have to be averaging speeds less than 45 MPH. Once I reached the Valley it all because clear. There is a brief stint on the Autobahn (fun!) and then you begin to drive right along the river, passing just beside and sometimes through these little Rhine Valley towns. You have to drive right along the river because there is only a very narrow bit of land beside the river that is flat. After that the hills rise sharply on either side with long rows of grapes stretching up to the tops of these hills. It is a beautiful sight, and if that were not impressive enough, around every other turn in the road there is a castle jutting out of the hill overlooking the river. It's amazing that I didn't crash into anything with this view. I was actually happy to hit a little bit of construction because then I could whip out my camera and take pictures!
I decided to go to two towns, St. Goar and Bacharach. I actually put St. Goarhausen into my navigator, whom I've named Hildegarde, so that I ended up on the opposite side of the river than I wanted to be. Also I should point out that there are no bridges over the river anywhere in this area. Not a problem, though. They have ferries! I drove my car onto the ferry and across we went.
In St. Goar is Rheinfels Castle, which was constructed in the 1200s and like every castle along the Rhine is up a hill, so up the hill I trekked. (This weekend provided an excellent excercise regime.) Some places in the castle and reasonably well preserved whereas others have collapsed from various sieges over the centuries. It was French Revolutionary troops that finally did it in. You can still see the larder, the dungeon (which was essentially a pit), and all the arrow slits and places to pour the boiling oil onto invading forces. I will post pictures later as no description can really capture it. I do enjoy history, so I had a fun time wandering through the castle.
St. Goar also offered me an opportunity to practice my French. In the town center there were an assortment of booths setup by merchants from Alsace. I had a chocolate crepe for breakfast. Yum. I also had to fend off an overly solicitous woman trying to sell me various preserves and jams. My mediocre French did not stop her from helping out by speaking much more slowly and having me taste like five different flavors including one interesting chestnut one. I finally told her that I wanted to go to the castle and did not want to carry these bottles up that hill, and she released me. I'm actually amazed I communicated that much in French.
After St. Goar I went to Bacharach. This town is absolutely adorable. It's all cobble-stoned and filled with half-timber houses, including the altes Haus, which was built in 1358. Yeah, I'd say that was one OLD house. I have to imagine that This Old House in Europe must be a very different kind of show.... There are also the remains of some of the original medieval town walls and six of the towers the dotted this wall. Again I hiked way the hell up this hill to the castle above. You couldn't actually walk through it, but it was huge an impressive none the less. Also part way up the hill was the remains of an old gothic-looking chapel.
The only thing left to do after this was make my way back home along the river for Incredibly Scenic Drive take II. I even went past the town of Bingen, for which Hildegard von Bingen was named. I had one of those, "Ohhhh, Bingen!" moments.
Anyway, this weekend I'm heading to Baden-Baden and Freiburg. If I'm very, very brave I may even do the traditional bath thing in Baden-Baden and go nekkid... We'll see if get up the nerve.
First thing about the Rhine Valley is that when I was planning my trip, I couldn't quite figure out why it would take me an hour and half to reach a destination that was only 77km away. I'd have to be averaging speeds less than 45 MPH. Once I reached the Valley it all because clear. There is a brief stint on the Autobahn (fun!) and then you begin to drive right along the river, passing just beside and sometimes through these little Rhine Valley towns. You have to drive right along the river because there is only a very narrow bit of land beside the river that is flat. After that the hills rise sharply on either side with long rows of grapes stretching up to the tops of these hills. It is a beautiful sight, and if that were not impressive enough, around every other turn in the road there is a castle jutting out of the hill overlooking the river. It's amazing that I didn't crash into anything with this view. I was actually happy to hit a little bit of construction because then I could whip out my camera and take pictures!
I decided to go to two towns, St. Goar and Bacharach. I actually put St. Goarhausen into my navigator, whom I've named Hildegarde, so that I ended up on the opposite side of the river than I wanted to be. Also I should point out that there are no bridges over the river anywhere in this area. Not a problem, though. They have ferries! I drove my car onto the ferry and across we went.
In St. Goar is Rheinfels Castle, which was constructed in the 1200s and like every castle along the Rhine is up a hill, so up the hill I trekked. (This weekend provided an excellent excercise regime.) Some places in the castle and reasonably well preserved whereas others have collapsed from various sieges over the centuries. It was French Revolutionary troops that finally did it in. You can still see the larder, the dungeon (which was essentially a pit), and all the arrow slits and places to pour the boiling oil onto invading forces. I will post pictures later as no description can really capture it. I do enjoy history, so I had a fun time wandering through the castle.
St. Goar also offered me an opportunity to practice my French. In the town center there were an assortment of booths setup by merchants from Alsace. I had a chocolate crepe for breakfast. Yum. I also had to fend off an overly solicitous woman trying to sell me various preserves and jams. My mediocre French did not stop her from helping out by speaking much more slowly and having me taste like five different flavors including one interesting chestnut one. I finally told her that I wanted to go to the castle and did not want to carry these bottles up that hill, and she released me. I'm actually amazed I communicated that much in French.
After St. Goar I went to Bacharach. This town is absolutely adorable. It's all cobble-stoned and filled with half-timber houses, including the altes Haus, which was built in 1358. Yeah, I'd say that was one OLD house. I have to imagine that This Old House in Europe must be a very different kind of show.... There are also the remains of some of the original medieval town walls and six of the towers the dotted this wall. Again I hiked way the hell up this hill to the castle above. You couldn't actually walk through it, but it was huge an impressive none the less. Also part way up the hill was the remains of an old gothic-looking chapel.
The only thing left to do after this was make my way back home along the river for Incredibly Scenic Drive take II. I even went past the town of Bingen, for which Hildegard von Bingen was named. I had one of those, "Ohhhh, Bingen!" moments.
Anyway, this weekend I'm heading to Baden-Baden and Freiburg. If I'm very, very brave I may even do the traditional bath thing in Baden-Baden and go nekkid... We'll see if get up the nerve.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Apartment and Weinfest
I appears that I have really lucked out with my apartment. It's on Annastrasse street, which for an American is probably one of the easier names to pronounce. Always a plus when trying to explain where you live to Germans. Anyway, Annastrasse is this lovely tree-lined, quiet street with nice houses and within easy walking distance to the main shops in Darmstadt. I'm really loving that I can just walk over to the stores and buy whatever I need instead of having to drive everywhere. The novelty may wear off during rainy, rainy November, but I'm enjoying it for now.
Today's big find was Joy of Figs take II. Nine large figs for just 1.5 euro. And the fruits and vegetables (Obst and Gemuese) are so fresh and delicious at the markets. I could totally get spoiled with this. I have to say that I appreciate the quality of the food. The selection is not as diverse as American stores, specifically with international food options outside of Europe. Although, I did find a small selection of Old El Paso dinner kits. That was bizarre and appeared strangely out of place.
Back to the apartment. It is very nice. It's all white and clean, and I seem to have this whole changing room filled with closets. It's a bit wasted on me since I only have two suitcases of clothes right now. The only downside to the apartment is that I don't have a microwave. Not an insurmountable problem, but slightly less convenient when it comes to reheating food. My TV has one English language station, CNN, and possibly MTV. Music is all in English, but the explanation and VJ commentary is in German. I suppose in that regard I could view it as a chance to practice listening to German. Oddly enough, German MTV actually plays music videos.
The Weinfest:
Around September and October Germany breaks out into Weinfest mode, with many towns hosting their own Weinfest. The one in Darmstadt is small, as I understand it, but I had fun. It's basically a whole bunch of stands serving wine, food (wursts and wursts), and live entertainment. The live entertainment is best viewed after copious wine. There were two stages, one with a pair of guys singing what sounded like Proud Mary but with all the pep and enthusiasm of a funeral dirge. The other stage had this guy in a shiny gold Elvis-style ensemble plus giant sunflower corsage singing German songs. He was definitely a source of great entertainment to our little group. I also learned an important lesson at Weinfest. Never let Germans order the alcohol. My repeated requests for HALF glasses of wine kept morphing into FULL glasses of wine. Since my alcohol tolerance is about as impressive as my command of the German language, the evening got very fuzzy very fast. I did have the presence of mind to periodically empty my glass of wine into Adam's glass of wine when he wasn't looking. For those as work, Adam has some great pictures of the Weinfest including one of my person Adam dubbed my "boyfriend". It has to be seen to be believed. Anyway, really fun time and I think I might stop by again on Sunday for some of the food. I'm currently off wine for a while...
Today I just got back from visiting the Rhine Valley with my German Navquest. Lovely, lovely area and gorgeous weather. I'll leave that for the next blog.
Today's big find was Joy of Figs take II. Nine large figs for just 1.5 euro. And the fruits and vegetables (Obst and Gemuese) are so fresh and delicious at the markets. I could totally get spoiled with this. I have to say that I appreciate the quality of the food. The selection is not as diverse as American stores, specifically with international food options outside of Europe. Although, I did find a small selection of Old El Paso dinner kits. That was bizarre and appeared strangely out of place.
Back to the apartment. It is very nice. It's all white and clean, and I seem to have this whole changing room filled with closets. It's a bit wasted on me since I only have two suitcases of clothes right now. The only downside to the apartment is that I don't have a microwave. Not an insurmountable problem, but slightly less convenient when it comes to reheating food. My TV has one English language station, CNN, and possibly MTV. Music is all in English, but the explanation and VJ commentary is in German. I suppose in that regard I could view it as a chance to practice listening to German. Oddly enough, German MTV actually plays music videos.
The Weinfest:
Around September and October Germany breaks out into Weinfest mode, with many towns hosting their own Weinfest. The one in Darmstadt is small, as I understand it, but I had fun. It's basically a whole bunch of stands serving wine, food (wursts and wursts), and live entertainment. The live entertainment is best viewed after copious wine. There were two stages, one with a pair of guys singing what sounded like Proud Mary but with all the pep and enthusiasm of a funeral dirge. The other stage had this guy in a shiny gold Elvis-style ensemble plus giant sunflower corsage singing German songs. He was definitely a source of great entertainment to our little group. I also learned an important lesson at Weinfest. Never let Germans order the alcohol. My repeated requests for HALF glasses of wine kept morphing into FULL glasses of wine. Since my alcohol tolerance is about as impressive as my command of the German language, the evening got very fuzzy very fast. I did have the presence of mind to periodically empty my glass of wine into Adam's glass of wine when he wasn't looking. For those as work, Adam has some great pictures of the Weinfest including one of my person Adam dubbed my "boyfriend". It has to be seen to be believed. Anyway, really fun time and I think I might stop by again on Sunday for some of the food. I'm currently off wine for a while...
Today I just got back from visiting the Rhine Valley with my German Navquest. Lovely, lovely area and gorgeous weather. I'll leave that for the next blog.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Week 1
Greetings all from Deutschland!
I promised that I would tell you all about settling in and traveling around in Germany, so here is a summary of the first couple days.
First of all, business class is awesome! That is the way to travel. I chatted with a very friendly German, Wolfgang, on the flight. He suggested a number of places to visit, including the Christmas market in Nürnberg, which he pointed out is called a Christkindlmarkt in that city, instead of Weihnachtsmarkt, which is the name in the rest of Germany. Aside from impressing Germans with my knowledge of their fair country, I don't think knowing that distinction is really that useful.
I arrived in what appeared to be a monsoon, but shortly after that it cleared up and we had a lovely, if rather cool, day. When I left Boston, it was 90F. I am currently in long-sleeves and sweater here. Clearly I had severely overestimated the temperature in Darmstadt this time of year. Autumn, or Herbst, has arrived, but my cold weather clothes are still somewhere in transit. Everyone is very pleased with the sunny weather, which seemed to have arrived when I did. I have, of course, taken complete credit for that.
For the first day I mostly filled out paperwork in the morning and then pretty much crashed in the afternoon in my hotel room. Like everyone else who has come over recently, I was stuck in the Maritim. Definitely liked the Welcome better.
Oh, and for anyone who was following my continuing frustrations with the Blackberry, it turns out that the new "Curve" model does not have 3G access, which means that my coverage in Europe is patchy. For instance I can get email messages in my apartment and in central Darmstadt, but not at work or when I was at the Maritim. I thought this might be useful to mention because if anyone is heading over, they might want to know that a lack of 3G on the phone can create some difficulty with the email access. The problem was not, as I originally thought, an issue with international roaming.
Day two, I wandered around Darmastadt and figured out where most of the main stores were. I have to admit that I quite liked that central area with all the shopping. It was nice to wander around, drink tea and munch on German pastries. And in true Jessica fashion, as I was walking back to the hotel, a woman pulled over her car and said, "Entschuldigung Sie, wo ist...." That is, "Excuse me, where is..." Even in Germany random people will stop me for directions. I guess I look knowledgeable and helpful across multiple cultures. For those who don't know, I get stopped for directions 9 times out of 10 when I visit Boston.
So far, I have managed to get by okay with my mediocre German. My biggest problem is when they ask me something back or give me instructions and I haven't the slightest clue what they are saying. Part of that may be that I just don't have enough vocabulary and some is not recognizing the words I do know. At lunch I have lots of time to practice listening to German because that's pretty much all the speak at the table. Occasionally I can catch a whole sentence... Suffice to say that I'm pretty quiet at lunch.
Okay, I'm going to stop there for now and when I have a chance fill you all in on the rest. I have to share the story of the evening at the Weinfest with some strange looking characters, including the singer who wore a gold glittering Elvis style ensemble. Actually, it was kind of like Elvis meets Liberace. Too strange for words...
Missing you all and I'll let you know when I can update again.
I promised that I would tell you all about settling in and traveling around in Germany, so here is a summary of the first couple days.
First of all, business class is awesome! That is the way to travel. I chatted with a very friendly German, Wolfgang, on the flight. He suggested a number of places to visit, including the Christmas market in Nürnberg, which he pointed out is called a Christkindlmarkt in that city, instead of Weihnachtsmarkt, which is the name in the rest of Germany. Aside from impressing Germans with my knowledge of their fair country, I don't think knowing that distinction is really that useful.
I arrived in what appeared to be a monsoon, but shortly after that it cleared up and we had a lovely, if rather cool, day. When I left Boston, it was 90F. I am currently in long-sleeves and sweater here. Clearly I had severely overestimated the temperature in Darmstadt this time of year. Autumn, or Herbst, has arrived, but my cold weather clothes are still somewhere in transit. Everyone is very pleased with the sunny weather, which seemed to have arrived when I did. I have, of course, taken complete credit for that.
For the first day I mostly filled out paperwork in the morning and then pretty much crashed in the afternoon in my hotel room. Like everyone else who has come over recently, I was stuck in the Maritim. Definitely liked the Welcome better.
Oh, and for anyone who was following my continuing frustrations with the Blackberry, it turns out that the new "Curve" model does not have 3G access, which means that my coverage in Europe is patchy. For instance I can get email messages in my apartment and in central Darmstadt, but not at work or when I was at the Maritim. I thought this might be useful to mention because if anyone is heading over, they might want to know that a lack of 3G on the phone can create some difficulty with the email access. The problem was not, as I originally thought, an issue with international roaming.
Day two, I wandered around Darmastadt and figured out where most of the main stores were. I have to admit that I quite liked that central area with all the shopping. It was nice to wander around, drink tea and munch on German pastries. And in true Jessica fashion, as I was walking back to the hotel, a woman pulled over her car and said, "Entschuldigung Sie, wo ist...." That is, "Excuse me, where is..." Even in Germany random people will stop me for directions. I guess I look knowledgeable and helpful across multiple cultures. For those who don't know, I get stopped for directions 9 times out of 10 when I visit Boston.
So far, I have managed to get by okay with my mediocre German. My biggest problem is when they ask me something back or give me instructions and I haven't the slightest clue what they are saying. Part of that may be that I just don't have enough vocabulary and some is not recognizing the words I do know. At lunch I have lots of time to practice listening to German because that's pretty much all the speak at the table. Occasionally I can catch a whole sentence... Suffice to say that I'm pretty quiet at lunch.
Okay, I'm going to stop there for now and when I have a chance fill you all in on the rest. I have to share the story of the evening at the Weinfest with some strange looking characters, including the singer who wore a gold glittering Elvis style ensemble. Actually, it was kind of like Elvis meets Liberace. Too strange for words...
Missing you all and I'll let you know when I can update again.
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