Komnata Chista's Travel Journals

Honoring the Dead in Germany

2010-11-16T01:44:00.000-08:00

Please check out my freelance articles I’ve written since my last post. If you click, I get some cash, so click away, even on the links within each article, even if you just look at the pictures. Thanks!

1. Spätburgunder is Germany's Version of Pinot Noir and its Best Red

2. German Red Varietal Dornfelder Wine has Dark, Intriguing Flavors

3. Bavarian Christmas Advent Market, Sand District, Bamberg Germany

4. Bavarian Alternative Artisan Christmas Market in Bamberg

Now for the journal:

It’s November and most people in the States are gearing up for Thanksgiving. Here in Germany, of course, they don’t do Thanksgiving and it’s just another Thursday. I have the impression they think it’s a day where Americans have yet another excuse to overeat. I would say, "I wouldn't throw stones, Germany!”

It’s certainly November: the days are short, the skies are gray and rain falls frequently. I’m not unhappy about all that at all, but it’s such a switch from the sunny, bright days I’ve had in Florida for the past 20 years.

They don’t do Halloween here much, as I stated in my last travel journal. However, the day after that, November 1, is a big holiday here. It’s All Saint’s Day wherein German families remember and honor their dead relatives. It’s quite a big to-do and very Catholic.

The way it’s done is to clean up and decorate – or pay someone to clean up and decorate – the family grave plots in the cemeteries. Then you go solemnly visit the gravesites in your Sunday go-t-meetin clothes.

I’ve seen it before in years past. One year when my husband was in the Army and we were stationed here, my friend Hilde asked if I would go to the cemetery on November 1 to photograph her father’s grave because she would be out of town. It sounded very odd to me at the time. But I went!

I remember how well manicured the cemetery was that day. Another interesting thing was that the graves are more elaborately built and decorated than what I’m used to seeing. Great, shiny marble slabs, plants, flowers and evergreen arrangements positioned just so. And there were many people there visiting, all dressed up.

For weeks I saw wind-proof votive candles and such in the supermarket’s seasonal aisle, but I didn’t realize it was for November 1. I figured they were Christmas decorations, since that stuff is on the shelves, too.

The most interesting item for sale in my opinion were the pallets with bags of what looked like potting soil. On closer inspection, I realized they were bags of soil for fixing up gravesites! A quick online search revealed that you can get this stuff in America, too, but I’ve never seen it, least of all in a supermarket.

Florists rack WAY up on this holiday and some offer services where they take the arrangements to the graves the day before. Cemetery caretakers do this, too. It’s a really big deal.

I learned recently that families must pay a lease on the gravesites each year. When the family dies out and there is no one to pay, they exhume the graves and cremate the remains so they can lease the plot to the next family. I guess that’s why the cemeteries always look new here. The really old graves are people interred in the churches themselves.

There are tombs beneath your feet in most churches here. If you look down you can see that the stone slabs of the flooring are about the size of a grave and many are etched with names. Some bodies are in wall tombs and are elaborately marked and sculpted. Bodies inside churches belonged to families of very high socio-economic rank or were famous for something.

I asked Hilde and Adi if I could go with them to the cemetery this year to make some photographs. I don’t want to be morbid, but I want to give you an idea of what a German cemetery looks like and how they do things on November 1.

Hilde’s parents’ grave:

She told me this was a plot for four and that she and Adi would be buried here. I found out from this conversation that they are allowed to stack the caskets two deep in Germany, but no more.

Hilde’s son-in-law’s father’s grave:

Hilde’s cousin’s grave (plot for six):

We visited two local cemeteries that day because Hilde has close relatives buried in both places. The second one we came to had a church service going on as we approached:

So back to the land of the living! I shot this of Hilde and Adi walking among the autumn trees. I liked the fall colors and the subdued lighting:

It seems we must remember our dead before we get on with the holidays. Last weekend was Germany’s equivalent of Veteran’s Day, so there was a small parade passing in front of my place on Sunday morning. It was led, of course, by the local marching band:

Later that day I hopped a bus into Bamberg just to get out of the apartment for a while. The weather had warmed up enough to sit at a sidewalk café and watch the people.

I can definitely see signs that Christmas is coming! The town is gearing up for the opening of the Christmas markets. You can see a string of lights here, a wooden stall there:

And the roasted chestnut vendor has been in place for a few weeks now:

So stay tuned for the pictures of the Christmas markets! And if you haven’t already, check out my freelance articles about them http://www.suite101.com/content/bamberg-christmas-market-weihnachtsmarkt-bavaria-germany-a297397:

Finally, for no apparent reason:

I call it, “Let me hold the ladder for you.” I shot this in the Linz, Austria, train station earlier this year. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

American Holidays in Europe

2010-10-31T02:48:00.000-07:00

Here are links to my freelance articles I've posted since my last travel journal. All clicks on these links are greatly appreciated because it adds to my coffers (makes me money!). By the way, because of your clicks, my revenue is up significantly this year for my freelance work. Sincerely, THANK YOU!

1. Bamberg Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt), Bavaria, Germany

2. Medieval Christmas Market, Schloss Geyerswörth, Bamberg, Germany

Bamberg has five Christmas markets and I’ve written about three of them (including the Bamberg Nativity Trail article I wrote last year). I’m working on articles about the other two, so look for those soon.

So let’s go with the journal:

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. However, it is not widely celebrated here in Europe. Especially not like it is in my neighborhood in Florida. In our subdivision, even the houses are in costume, the adults handing out treats are in costume and droves and droves of children also in costume roam the streets grubbing candy. Even the parents come along in costume and many families dress up their dogs and bring them, too. It’s such a fantastic block party! Therefore, it’s also one of the hardest days for me to be here in Europe because I enjoy the American festivities so much.

Here in Germany there are jack-o-lanterns here and there and stores have maybe an endcap display with smiling ghosts or pumpkins, but nothing like the Walmart response to this holiday.

I must say that Hilde’s tenant, about 30 years old, told me yesterday that she is going to a costume party, so the tradition is creeping in gradually. Interestingly, the hosts of the costume party have specified that each person must dress up and that the costume must be a character from either a Johnny Depp movie or a Tim Burton movie. Great idea, right? She said she would simply be a pirate of the Caribbean and the host quickly cut her off, saying, “Anything but a pirate!”

Also, I did see a couple of pumpkin faces yesterday on some fenceposts near here. They were kind of melty, having been obviously sitting in the sunny weather for a few too many days, looking like old, toothless men.

While I don’t have any lengthy Halloween stories or pictures, it reminded me of the local supermarket flyer I picked up shortly before last Fourth of July. The store name is Aldi, and they also have locations in the States. It’s not a big store and they have a very limited offering such as coffee, bread, cheese, t.p., shampoo and basics. But they have a quickly-changing middle aisle with interesting goodies depending on the time of year or upcoming holiday.

I found the late-June offerings so delightful because they were offering “American” food. The flyer never mentioned the Fourth of July, but it certainly looked like a July 4^th flyer from any American supermarket, except, of course, it was in German.

I have been surprised over the years that foods considered uniquely American include peanut butter, ketchup, popcorn, hotdogs and, of course, hamburgers. This year I added marshmallows to the list!

I kept the Aldi flyer and photographed it for you. My favorite ad was for the marshmallows:

Notice it says “Barbecue Marshmallows.” I deduced they meant the marshmallows were for toasting over a fire, but the image that came to mind for me was barbecue sauce on a marshmallow!

The flyer is filled with a lot of near-misses, such as ketchup-and-mustard or ketchup-and-mayo in tubes to squirt on hamburgers or hot dogs. Ew.

Here is the flyer in its entirety. Click on each photo to see a larger version of it.

The headline reads, “America invites you!”

Lastly, I found some popcorn recently at a different supermarket. Found it in the “International” aisle, what we would call in the States the “Ethnic” aisle. This ethnic aisle has snails from France and balsamic vinegar from Italy. The International aisle also has Tabasco and a couple of other real American products.

Anyway, when was the last time you connected popcorn to a biker riding a chopper?

Finally, here’s your Photo for No Apparent Reason:

Europe 2010 - 26 September

2010-09-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

Before I continue the story of the BMW Museum in Munich in June this year, I want to mention these freelance travel articles I’ve posted since my last travel journal. Keep in mind that if you click on the title, I get a little cash, so please click away. THANKS!

1. Historical and Modern Czech Town of Jablonec nad Nisou in Bohemia

2. Museum of Glass and Jewelry in Jablonec, Bohemia, Czech Republic

3. Local Heckenwirtschaft or Wine-Tasting Rooms, Franconia, Germany

Now back to my visit to Munich with my husband and the vast BMW complex, including our further indoctrination into the cult that is at the heart of BMW driving. Here is Day 2.

On Sunday June 6 we woke in our Munich hotel – Park Inn Frankfurter Ring. Now, I’d stayed in a Park Inn in Linz, Austria earlier in the year that was absolutely top-notch! This one was ok, but I wouldn’t put it at the top of any list. Maybe the other locations in Munich were better, but this one was ho-hum. I liked the Ghotel where I stayed in March better.

In any case, we weren’t there for the room. However, I took some shots from our minuscule balcony that morning. One was of a wine warehouse next to the hotel. I don’t even want to know anything else about the wine there.

Our destination that day was the BMW Museum, which is located next to the BMW Welt that we’d visited the day before. Check out the pictures from my previous post. The Museum is the bowl-shaped building in front of the four-cylinder BMW headquarters building.

This day was the highlight of the trip and the main reason we’d come to Munich. We had booked a City Tour, which is to say we were signed up to tour Munich in antique BMW convertibles!

We arrived at the Museum about half an hour early and checked in, poked around the gift shop and checked out the lobby displays. A few minutes til 11:00 we made our way outside to wait for the Grand Ladies, which is my name for the beautiful cars that squired us around that day.

I inquired about the direction from which the cars would arrive and positioned myself about three steps down across the small plaza so I would be grill-level with them. I was not disappointed. A general cry went up, “Here they come!” and I was able to get these shots:

Aren’t they lovely? One of the many things that impressed me were the smiles on the faces of our dashing young chauffeurs. They seemed truly happy to be there and did not drop the attitude all day. These young men had undergone some obviously extensive training to give us the tour that they did. Plus they had hats

I spent another ten minutes or so photographing while the other tour participants, family, friends and assorted visitors inspected the Grand Ladies, took pictures and asked questions about the automobiles.

This car, a BMW 326, was made in 1936 and has a V8 engine. Can’t you just see gangsters in it? I mean real ones, not rappers.

This Lady, a BMW 335, was built in, I believe, 1939. Think of it: these cars survived WWII! This one gave us the most trouble; she stalled a couple of times but the drivers seemed to know just what to do and adjusted the fuel mixture to solve the problem. The smell of gasoline was strong in the air.

I assumed these Grand Ladies required old-time leaded gasoline and wondered where they obtained it. I was surprised to learn that they ran on unleaded gasoline! The drivers told us that no conversion was necessary to allow this but that the fuel mixture has to be richer if unleaded gas is used.

Last but not least is the youngster of the group. She was a 1950’s BMW 502, otherwise known as the Baroque Angel because of her voluptuous curves.

Our attentive chauffeur squad:

Long before I was ready to stop taking pictures, the drivers herded us into the cars. There were, of course, only three passenger spots in each car which is why, because I snatched a few last pictures, I ended up in a different car from my husband. It really didn’t matter, though. I was able to photograph him in the other car. Besides, my car was last and I was able to see the other two ahead of us and get a few more photos.

The first place we went was under the BMW Welt building and into large, car-sized elevators! I didn’t think our huge vehicles would fit, but they did. My car had to wait because there were only two elevators.

When we emerged we found ourselves on the delivery platform! It’s where new car owners can take European delivery of their new BMW’s. We cruised around the platform a couple of times and drew a crowd of BMW Welt visitors along the railing opposite the platform.

In a few minutes we headed down the spiral ramp that led out onto the street.

My driver was speaking German for the benefit of the other passengers and I was only half paying attention to his monologue as I shot pictures until I heard him say “Geburtskanal” which is German for birth canal! At that point I just laughed out loud.

Outside a tour group that had just gotten off a bus greeted us with waves, smiles and cameras. One of the best parts of the tour was that people were just so delighted to see the cars!

We rounded the BMW Welt and drove into the factory compound across the street. Even though it was closed because it was Sunday they did not allow photographs during our time on the factory grounds. Here’s one of the Ladies entering the gate:

Although I’m not at liberty to divulge any industrial espionage information at this juncture I would like to report that the factory has its own fire department and emergency medial center. I tell you that to tell you this: the emergency doctor’s vehicle is a Mini Cooper!

After we drove through the deserted factory compound where the only thing I can remember seeing is a rack of new bumpers on a forklift, we drove another ten minutes or so to another BMW location. This location excited me because, on one side of the small drive was a large, new, skyscraper where all the BMW and Mini Cooper engineers worked. I just felt the energy of so much creativity there! I imagined them drawing out my Mini Cooper on their drafting tables back in 2002 and sculpting it out of clay! Right there!

Alas we were not to visit that building. Our destination was across the small street at a much older building called the BMW Classic Center where BMW stores its vast historical collection of automobiles. They swap out the automobiles in the Museum from time to time using this collection. There was at least one of each model of BMW from the early years up to today. There must have been 200 or so cars in that building and even more motorcycles.

The first floor was the Motorsport division where the racing crews work on the racing cars. It was locked and we couldn’t go in, but they didn’t stop me when I took a picture through the glass doors. I glimpsed more than one Mini Cooper in there. BTW, in case you are wondering why we didn’t tour the Mini Cooper Museum it’s because there isn’t one – at least in Munich - yet. There is one in the works, though, and you know I’ll be visiting that one as soon as they open it.

Here’s a rack of trophies won by BMW Motorsports over the years. Dig the old helmet!

A display on the second floor showed a common condition in which many of the old cars have been discovered.

BMW and other car manufacturers have a department where you can bring your rusty old car to be restored to its original glory by the original car company. That way you can be sure it’s authentically refurbished.

On the third floor was what seemed like acres of cars, motorcycles, models, concepts and everything else ever produced by BMW. I can’t remember near the amount of information provided by our driver, but he knew an extensive amount about almost every vehicle present. It took a couple of hours or more to get through all this. Here are some highlights.

First two models of BMW:

German fire chief’s car:

Toy Grand Lady:

Our driver and guide:

This ugly little brat of a car is an Isetta. It’s credited with saving BMW from bankruptcy after WWII. Because BMW’s were only luxury cars up to that point and no one could afford them, BMW was in serious financial straits. To save the company they bought and re-engineered the one-cylinder Isetta from an Italian firm. Sales of the Isetta saved the company financially. Interesting note: the Italian company that first made the Isetta also made refrigerators, which is why the door on the Isetta, which opens from the front, resembles a refrigerator door.

First Morris Mini 1959 (same year I was born):

This huge monster was custom-made for a client in China. It had Chinese characters on the back so I couldn’t tell you what model it was based on.

Miscellaneous companies were acquired by BMW over the years and, because they didn’t have sufficient time to redesign each one, they just stuck the BMW “kidneys” on the front of existing models.

My favorite car, I have to admit, was this sporty little number made for the James Bond movie GoldenEye. I could see myself driving that one! It’s a Z3 and it is only made in South Carolina. The one in the Bond movie was the first Z3 ever introduced and apparently there was a huge hoopla over the fact that a British agent was driving a German car.

My close second favorite was the stunt car from the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, a modified BMW 750i. In the movie it looked so cool, but up close you could see the hand-done modifications. This rather phallic appliance on the front doesn’t really cut anything:

And this string of tire-puncturers was actually flimsy plastic! However, these tires, which were actually used for the stunts, were shredded!

Here’s a shot of the rear bumper where they put in the smoke and oil slick stuff:

At one point in the movie (apparently because I haven’t actually seen it yet) Bond is controlling the car remotely with his cell phone. In actuality a stunt driver was sitting in the floorboard in the back using steering-wheel, accelerator and brake pedal extensions. He could see where to drive only via a video screen mounted beside him and had the help of a director through his audio headset:

Here are some fake rockets mounted in the sunroof:

Now I bet you have that James Bond theme music running through your head!

Moving on, here are a couple of dune buggies custom-built for clients in the Middle East.

Check out the paw-print tire tread:

Gull-wing M1:

An ocean of BMW motorcycles:

Is anyone else thinking “Great Escape?”

This is a modified scooter called the C1. Because of the seatbelt and roll cage you don’t need a helmet under Germany’s and other nations’ laws. This apparently made it very popular. This one was designed by Louis Vuitton, and if that big bag wasn’t on the back you could actually fit a passenger back there. But he would have to wear a helmet!

Painted for the movie Zombie Violence:

Early racing bike. The guy on the sidecar had to hang out over the side to give the vehicle stability around curves.

Now that’s what I call a real car phone! This was in an emergency vehicle model.

By the time we got through that floor of the Classic Car Center my head was swimming. However, I had to go ahead and shoot some more pictures in the lobby while we were served delicious cookies and cappuccino. The main reason for the additional photos was the Mini display. This one was set up like a hotel, of all things. If you look closely you’ll see a pillow and bed on the driver’s side and a lamp. The International Hotel sign is mounted on top the car. I dunno. Mine doesn’t look like that.

Then it was back to the Grand Ladies. We all switched cars. We had one more stop later so everyone had a chance to ride in each car. But the drivers took our photos before they made my husband get out of the driver’s seat:

My husband and I were both in the same car this time and I sat behind him. Here are some shots from that fun ride:

Restored old town walls:

Just think: this guy has a picture of me in the other car taking a picture of him!

Our next stop was the BMW showroom at Lenbachplatz. It’s the place where they introduce all the newest models. I assumed they had my Mini here back in 2001. This year they are introducing the elegant new 5er Series limousine model. Remember all those bubbles from the BMW Welt?

Here they gave us each a copy of a book called Car Styling: BMW Group Design. It’s all about BMW’s design and engineering. A beautiful addition to my library. We also got some “non-alcoholic cocktails,” a term they kept using for some strange reason. It was fruit tea. There was also a Harmon Kardon stereo system demo room that was impressive with its surround-sound effects of helicopters, piano concerts and city traffic. Not all at the same time.

While the slick salespeople bent the ears of the other tour group members, I wandered around for photos. Outside there was a troupe in costume from a local performance drumming up business. I don’t know what show this was for, but I’d seen similar in Prague for Don Giovanni and other operas.

In a little while we were back in the Grand Ladies. Here’s what our driver called the “air conditioning,” a lever to open the windshield panel to tilt it out about two inches!

The turn signal of the car. The driver could turn it on from a dash knob that flipped out the orange indicator.

However, it needed a little help turning off from the passenger (me) who had to reach out and press it back into the housing.

After our three-hour tour (?) we reluctantly returned to the Museum. The drivers said we could stay out longer but there was another tour they had to get back for. I don’t know if I believed them, but I appreciated their saying it.

But our BMW day wasn’t over yet. Back inside the Museum we each received a giftbox with a certificate of participation, a CD with those Harmon Kardon sound effects, a ticket to tour the Museum and a Museum guidebook.

The Museum had been renovated from 2006-2008 and was ultra-modern inside. The walls were made of thick, opaque white glass with millions of LEDs behind it. The displayed constantly moving photos of BMW models and events.

We followed the ramps through the Museum and honestly it seemed like we would get lost or miss something. But we saw everything in order and came out at the end without having to backtrack or look for the exit.

BMW used to be an airplane factory so there was the requisite plane engines:

Early parts delivery van. “Teile in Eile” means “Parts in a hurry.”

Man, that F1 sure is banking that turn!

Here is an actual clay model of a car. Despite the fence and warning signs not to touch it, there were about a million fingernail jabs in it.

This table was a touch-screen. You could touch it anywhere and bring up answers to your own questions about BMW. Sweet.

THIS is my favorite car of all! A 1956 touring convertible. I keep checking eBay.

Concept hydrogen car. I’ve actually seen this car at auto shows in Tampa.

The last part of our tour was the bowl of the Museum building. It has an actual car ramp spiraling around it and, instead of cars, these days it has revolving exhibits. The exhibit that was there in June consisted of models of art museums around the world.

View of the plaza outside through one of the “spaceship portholes.”

The spiral ramp has uplifting and inspirational words and phrases on it. In addition, they projected like words and phrases and photos on the darkened round walls. My favorite shot of all this was going down the escalator that cuts through the middle of the spiral ramps:

So that’s it for our BMW experience. What a head full of information and images! I hope you have enjoyed it. We sure did. I would highly recommend the BMW complex and tour to anyone who visits Munich. I hear the Porsche and Mercedes Museums are even better. I’ll let you know…

Before I sign off, here a Photo for No Apparent Reason (yes, they ARE pedaling):

Europe 2010 - 8 August

2010-08-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

Many of you have seen my freelance articles about my Munich adventures. If you haven’t click on any of the links below and you can read the articles. I would definitely appreciate even just a click to look at the pictures at the end of each article because, as you know, if you click, I get paid.

Weisswurst (in fact one of my knowledgeable Czech friends yelled at me for putting a picture of Weisswurst next to a glass of mineral water instead of beer with this article, so just ignore that part of the picture!)
BMW Welt
BMW Museum
BMW Classic Car City Tour
Review of the Ghotel hotel
Glockenspiel in Marienplatz
Viktualienmarkt
Spargel (White Asparagus)

However, this personal travel journal is free to you and I get no remuneration for my posts. I do it because I love sharing Europe with my friends. There is a certain amount of freedome of style, too, because I don’t have to conform to any editorial rules such as avoiding contractions, the first person voice, or damn cusswords!

So on with the show. This time I’ll tell you about my second trip to Munich this year. My husband, James, came for an all-too-brief visit in early June and we traveled to Munich to tour the BMW attractions there. Neither one of us had ever seen them and we are both BMW fans. I have a Mini Cooper that is like my own beating heart and his dream car is a BMW M6 convertible. We’re working on his.

First I have to tell you about the BMW miracle. The week before my husband arrived I had called the BMW Museum. They have a City Tour wherein you can ride through Munich in original BMW convertibles from the 1930’s and 1950’s. That’s what we wanted to do. So I called the Museum, but there was no answer. I left a message; I think I left a message because it was in German and I heard a beep. Oh well.

To be sure, I called back later that same day and managed to talk to a nice person who told me the tours were totally booked on the dates that we could make it. Rats. So my husband and I proceeded to look at other options.

A couple of days after he arrived, I received a phone call from the BMW Museum in response to the message that I had left the week before. They said they had five places left the coming Sunday and asked if I was still interested. Was I! I immediately booked our spots and asked if there had been cancellations. The person was very confused and said she didn’t know why I was told they were booked because they had not been full for that particular tour. Things are always working out for us!

So we quickly planned our weekend to Munich. We hopped a bus to the Bamberg train station on Saturday, June 5, where I met these two lovely young people:

I totally dig their get-ups. The one on the left is Sebastian. I didn’t catch the girl’s name correctly. It was endearing to me that these kids were SO SHY when I asked to take their pictures. Imagine getting dressed up like that, spending no telling how much time, and then being shy about getting attention. Hey, Sherry, would they qualify as Juggelos?

Here’s a self-portrait I took of us in the window of a passing train. Keep in mind the train was moving at the time.

There was a large group of cyclists who boarded a train on their way to some planned ride. Not all trains in Germany allow bicycles and I think there is an extra fee to transport them. There is limited space, too, so you have to have a bike reservation. These guys had the procedure down to a science. They managed to stow about 20 bikes in the few minutes the train was stopped at the platform.

Our train arrives - my favorite kind of train, the ICE train. ICE stands for Inter-City Express and it’s a high-speed train that doesn’t stop in every little berg. The red trains, or Regio trains, are for that. ICE trains have air-conditioning, much more comfortable seating, and full restaurant cars. Plus they look cooler!

Speaking of cooler, it was so hot in July that some ICE trains’ A/C failed and they had to cancel journeys. The evening news showed people being carted away from ICE trains on stretchers due to heat stroke. Fortunately it was nice and cool on the weekend we took our trip to Munich.

A German businessman using his train time wisely at the table in front of our row:

We arrived in a couple of hours and took the S-bahn (subway) to beautiful Marienplatz:

Then we had two well-deserved refreshments at the Lowenbrau restaurant in Viktualienmarkt after our walking tour:

Here’s a picture of a veggie booth selling the springtime delicacy, Spargel:

This guy walked by so fast I almost didn’t get the shot. That’s why the top of his fabulous boar-bristle brush is cut off. But at least I got this much. When I laughingly showed this to Hilde later, she took it very seriously and said it was a very expensive brush. Apparently I was being too irreverent – imagine that.

After lunch we hopped another S-bahn and rode to the BMW complex. We made our way into the huge BMW Welt (BMW World) building. It’s a giant BMW showroom full of cars and interactive games and displays encompassing everything BMW. Engines, upholstery, racing and yachting, you name it. It has three restaurants and two gift shops. BMW has certainly done a great job in presenting their cutting-edge engineering culture. And this wasn’t even the museum!

The architecture of part of the building looks like it was originally a cylindrical building then the Jolly Green Giant gave it a twist.

Here’s the room that shows every possible selection of upholstery, carpeting and interior option available. Doesn’t James look natural opening the door to this monster of a car?

There were these creepy little robots skulking around with happy messages in English and German scrolling across the bottom. This one proclaimed, ‘Joy is the nicest way to unite people.” They moved like slugs and reacted to the presence of people in their vicinity. Ew.

Interactive ABS display:

Mostly male visitors were drawn to the engine exhibits:

A video game demonstrating the electronic traction system drew the kids:

The yachting display had some of the best photography. I didn’t realize BMW had a yachting team!

BMW’s heads-up projection display is used in fighter jet pilot helmets. Also, check out the chrome sculpture in the background. They also had artwork displayed throughout the place. This one, of course, was based on exhaust pipes.

In the center of the second floor of the building was the new-car delivery area. If you take European delivery of your new BMW, you get to go here and get treated like royalty when they hand you the keys. It’s really fun to watch a happy new owner get his keys and drive down the ramp in his dream car!

Trying out the new 5 series. It was nice, but I think I’ll stick with my Mini.

A view of the BMW headquarters building shaped, of course, like cylinders. On the lower right is the bowl of the BMW Museum. These two buildings were built in the 70’s, I think.

The ceiling of the “twisted” part of the BMW Welt building:

Motorcycles mounted outside. You can climb onto them and try them on for size.

Next to the BMW complex is the Olympic Park. It was originally built for the 1972 Winter Olympics. I’m old enough to remember seeing the structures on TV. They still use the park for sporting events and concerts and such.

Munich has had a hard time with Olympics throughout history. They hosted the 1936 winter Olympic games, the first time downhill skiing was included. It was also a Nazi showcase at the time and apparently Hitler took a lot of farmland for the games that never got returned to the farmers. Among other things.

Then there was 1972 when Palestinian militants took Israeli athletes hostage and executed them in front of our eyes.

Now Munich has entered a bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. They plan to refurbish and add to the existing Olympic Village if they get the prize. Some farmers in the nearby Alps, though, have refused to cede their land for Olympics use, fearing their historical buildings will be destroyed and that they might lose their land permanently. I personally hope they win the contract, settle amicably with the farmers, and have a successful Games. It would be a sort of redemption of the bad history for them.

But anyway. I’ve seen the Olympic park from the highway and have always wanted to get up close to it to see how it was made. It always looked like a net to me though I knew it had to be sturdier than that.

Here was my chance. It was just a short walk from BMW Welt to the Olympic Park. Here’s a shot of the communications tower built for the Olympics but still used and updated for Munich’s TV, mobile phone and other communications purposes.

A short walk across a footbridge and I was thrilled to begin to see the infrastructure up close:

It’s made of two layers of Plexiglass with metal framework and guide wires:

As our City Tour was not scheduled until the next day and as we were pretty worn out by the day’s excitement, we made our way back to the subway to get to dinner and then back to our hotel.

That does it for Day 1 of our Munich BMW adventure. I have SO many more pictures of the next day, so I’ll break this journal into two separate posts.

Before I go, though, I’ll leave you with another Photo for No Apparent Reason (PFNAR):

I so dig these two guys! I was taking pictures with my camera on the subway without looking through the lens. It was sitting on my knee and I was nonchalantly taking pictures without, I hoped, being detected. Later I discovered that maybe this guy had figured out what I was doing after all. Still doesn’t change the fact that those two were rocking the pastels!

Battle of the Bands - Part Deux

2010-08-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

I am kinda surprised I got this journal posted today. There was some doubt because I’ve just returned from Hilde and Adi’s where Hilde served a wonderful Sunday dinner of Sauerbraten, potato dumplings and gravy. Then we had plum torte and coffee, but not even the German coffee is staving off the yawns completely.

Remember if you click on any of the photos you can see the full-size version.

But on with the story:

A third instance of music marching past was the pièce de résistance of them all. The local marching band is called the Blasmusikverein Bischberg. Because German is so freaking logical, I can break this title down for you: Blas (horn) musik (music) verein (association) Bischberg (my little town).

They had their “jubilee” this year, which is means they celebrated their 50^th anniversary. The posters around town announced that the celebration would start on Friday 18 June and go through the weekend until Sunday 20 June. Germans have a verb derived from the word "jubilee," as in, "They jubileed this year."

So on Friday I was ready and kept near the window most of the day. Unfortunately my husband had gone back to the States by this time so I was on my own.

The forecast was for rain and it did rain several times that day. The weather here was pretty much anybody’s guess, so no one knew what was going to happen.

Well, it was sprinkling a little around 7:00 p.m. when I heard music. So I ran to the window with my camera and waited for the band to come into view. I was feeling pretty smug about my bird’s-eye viewpoint and the fact that I was inside out of the rain until the band took a left turn off the main street just before it reached my apartment!

So I dashed down the stairs and saw a second band coming down the street.

They turned down the same little road.

So all us little children of Hamelin followed them!

Interestingly to me, I just looked up the Pied Piper of Hamelin to make sure I was spelling the name of the town correctly. It’s actually a modification of the spelling of a German town called Hameln about four hours from here.

Anyway, we followed them to a little square that’s just one block off the main drag. There I saw the first band; you can see them in red in the background of this photo. The second band lined up in the middle of this little square.

A banner and ropelight sign announcing the 50^th anniversary of Bischberg’s marching band hung on the building adjacent to the square:

As I waited, I heard more music, and ANOTHER band came marching into the square to take its place. They looked like minutemen to me, but they weren’t playing Yankee Doodle.

So I began to get the picture that we were all waiting for several more bands. I wondered how they would ever fit into the tiny square, but Europeans are good at that sort of thing.

As it began to rain a little harder, a fourth band showed up. I dig their green socks. The men were rockin’ those lederhosen!

Well, of course, there was a space left, so ANOTHER band marched in playing.

Notice the role of the fire department in all this. They acted as escorts to each group. They were decked out in their waterproof gear for this.

A SIXTH band came in from another direction! Notice that each band had a kid or kids walking in front with a sign designating what village they were from. These boys looked particularly uninterested. But they were there.

Rockin’ the Dirndl!

Well, I guess either all the bands showed up or they simply ran out of room. In any case, the Burgermeister (yes, the actually use that word) of Bischberg began to make a speech. It continued to rain harder…

Dig his embroidered felt jacket and lederhosen. Note also the umbrellas sprouting among the crowd. Remember that I’d dashed out of the house without a jacket or umbrella. It was a very cold rain.

The Burgermeister welcomed everyone and apologized for the weather. I surmised that the bands were supposed to play together while each bandleader took turns leading them.

However, it began to rain so hard that the Burgermeister suggested that they try to stand under the skinny little trees in the square (which, by the way, is a parking lot on a normal day) for shelter. Here’s how THAT looked:

Notice the one dedicated young man holding the sign for his band while getting soaked in the process. Notice his cowardly band crowded under the trees.

I crouched down near the ground to get a shot of how hard it was raining by then. The guy in the white t-shirt is conducting the bands.

As I shot that last photo, a dog nosed my elbow. I turned to pet him and the lady who was holding his leash bent slightly in my direction to see if the dog was bothering me. He wasn’t. But as she did this, all the water from the top of her umbrella spilled right down the back of my neck! That was it. I decided I had enough photos and that I had absorbed enough of the local color. I was really wet and getting chilled, so I bailed. I tried to be inconspicuous as I faded out the back through the crowd and made my way laughingly back to my apartment. What a hoot!

Back inside as I dried my hair in a nice warm towel, I noticed the music had stopped, though the rain hadn’t. Apparently they had either finished their program or called it onaccounta rain because I saw this when I looked out the window:

Saturday I heard music off and on all day. I had a lot of writing to do that day so I didn’t investigate. However, for a break in the afternoon I decided to see if I could record some of the music on my computer from the window. It worked much better than I expected. I was trying to embed the audio file into this blog post, but I'll spare you a long, sad story and just say it isn't working yet. Maybe soon, I'll let you know.

Sunday June 20 the energy in my little berg was very festive. Sunday mornings are usually pretty quiet, but this day people chattered excitedly as they went to and fro in Bavarian finery, getting ready for the big parade later that day.

I was excited, too, because Hilde and Adi were coming over to watch the parade from my window with me. It didn’t start til 1:00 p.m., but there was plenty to see beforehand. Hilde brought one of her famous marble cakes and I made coffee. We chowed as we watched the people gather on the street below.

I loved this guy’s look:

And lest any of you think the 80’s are dead, check out this guy’s space suit!

For the record, I left out all the pictures that I could have gotten really snide about!

So the parade started. I have to tell you that it was much longer than I expected, even though I didn’t really know what to expect. A total of 34 bands marched by! In between them were schools, guilds, organizations, you name it. I won’t show you a photo of every band, but I’m including a representative few. Plus several photos of interesting groups and what passed for floats. Hope you enjoy the parade!

For the parade, the kids holding the signs for each band were dressed in traditional clothes, too.

LOVE this car! I do not know where they keep it - no German garage would be large enough.

Chef's guild handing out some kind of rice dish:

Brewery "float" handing out little cups of beer. Sure beats our candy and beads thing in the States.

Bicycle soccer team!

Elementary school:

Taking his job too seriously:

Fire department:

The parade was before the World Cup - this guy was really into it!

Florist guild:

Too confident there's a band behind him:

Remember the funky green outfits from the last post? Here's the whole fisherman's guild. They held a Fischerfest the next weekend wherein they grilled carp from the river and, of course, beer. I walked through the fest but the smell of frying carp didn't sit very well with me. It was a quick visit.

Here's the daughter of my downstairs neighbor, the woman who runs the flower shop on the ground floor. Daughter's name is Patricia and she is SO sweet, if a little loquacious!

Cheerleaders and baton twirlers:

No idea.

This is a group from Weipelsdorf where Hilde and Adi live. The woman in the lower left looking backward is Andrea, Hilde's nephew's wife.

Traditional dance group.

Another fire department. Notice the little baby in the wagon with his fireman gear on.

Trying to update the lederhosen look:

This guy was the flag bearer for a traditionally clad group - I think they are a dance group, too, but it wasn't clear. The flag says, "Knights of the Chicken." Dunno.

The woman waving is Hilde's good friend Margit. I've met her and she is just so personable. No surprise that she's waving madly to make sure we see her.

This is a hunting club. Looks like a Zorro lookalike contest.

Kids' soccer teams.

Bischberg's basketball team.

This is an absolutely gorgeous old truck! I've seen it around a few times. Sounds awesome.

So after the parade, the entire town made its way to the soccer field about five blocks away where there was a huge beer tent set up, of course. I noticed the signs hanging from the tent ceiling - I think they were reunions of versions of the band through the years.

And, of course, there are always the young guys down front who have been drinking the longest and try to get in my lens as I try to get a shot of the band on the stage:

We sat outside at one of the many tables set up out there. I got this shot of an awesome 'stache!

Who dat in Germany with a beer and her good friend Hilde? The beer was the local brew and very delicious.

Trumpet duets broke out from time to time on the festplatz.

Commemorative beer deckel - I have two of them myself.

I hope you enjoyed the parade and the account of the local flavor. Bischberg's band played at the subsequent Wasserfest (water festival - I didn't go but could hear it), Johannisfeuer celebration (bonfire and music) and assorted other little gatherings. The fest thing has died down over the hot summer, but it will gear up again in the fall as Oktoberfest approaches. Look for those stories.

Whew! I gotta stop spoiling you guys with so many photos. It takes me forever and a couple of diopters of eyesight to process and upload all of them. Don’t get used to it!

But I will leave you with this photo for no apparent reason:

Battle of the Bands - Part I

2010-07-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Note: Don't forget that you can click on any photo and see the full-sized version of it.

I mentioned in my last journal that many times since I moved here I have heard music down the street and ran to find out what was going on, camera in hand. That was the case for the Bamberg Zaubert fest in my last travel journal.

It’s happened in my little Bischberg about three times since I moved there at the beginning of May, too. Fortunately for me I live right on Main Street and can shoot photos from my window. I’m on the third floor so I have a bird’s eye view of the goings-on.

The first time I was surprised by music was on May 24^th. About 8:00 o’clock in the morning I heard German oompah music. (is there any other kind around here? No.) I grabbed the camera, ditched the lens cap and opened the window. First I saw nothing but a fireman wearing his blue uniform and a glow-in-the-dark orange vest.

The music stopped and I heard a woman speaking as if over a PA system and other people murmuring replies. I recognized it from my Catholic upbringing as the scripted prayer/response thing they do. Everything around here is Catholic and hardly anything happens that isn’t church-related.

As the sounds grew closer, a little parade led by altar boys and girls came into view. You can see some of the band members in this photo. There were only six of them, which was a surprise to me. I was waiting to see the rest of the band that wasn’t there. This is pretty much the only picture I have of the band fragment:

Then I saw the loudspeaker – check it out: it’s being carried on a pole by the man in the red shirt on the far side of the street in this photo:

The procession wasn’t much longer than what you see in the photos. They continued out of earshot. Later, around 10:00 a.m. they came back the other way!

My landlady, whose name is Frau Dütsch (I’ll call her Frau D), told me that it was because of Pfingsten, or Pentecost. This is the Catholic celebration of when the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of fire on the 12 Apostles. It supposedly happened 50 days after Christ’s resurrection, so that’s why it’s called Pentecost. BTW, German for 50 is “Fuenfzig” so the words sound kinda the same.

Frau D told me that the procession had walked to Weipelsdorf and back. Weipelsdorf is the small village about two kilometers from here where my friends Hilde and Adi live.

However, I went to visit them later that day and Hilde told me that the procession actually walked to Trosdorf and back, which is another little village also about two kilometers from here. So they’d walked about 2 ½ miles total that morning, praying and playing music. Nice day for it.

Hilde said the Pfingsten procession alternates years. One year they go to Trosdorf and the next year they go to Weipelsdorf. So the landlady wasn’t too far off. Plus I might have misunderstood her squeaky German – that’s always possible.

Hilde also told me that the Bischberg band is actually much, much larger, but the rest of the band members were on a bus trip to Rome. She said they were very well known as being one of the best in the region.

Since then I’ve discovered that the band practices next door at the Gasthaus (pub) on Friday evenings. So when the weather is nice I sit on my balcony and enjoy some Bavarian tunes. They’re really quite good. To call them an oompah band is doing them a little disservice but it gives you an idea of the type of music they play. The music is actually a lot more melodious than an oompah polka thing.

On June 29 I was ecstatic to welcome my beloved husband, James, for a visit! We did so many fun things that I’m saving those stories for another post. Some of you have already seen my freelance articles about Munich and the BMW Museum (http://germany-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/bmw-museum-in-munich-presents-90-year-history-of-german-car-maker), BMW Welt (http://germany-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/tour-giant-bmw-welt-bmw-world-showroom-free-in-munich-germany)and the City Tour(http://germany-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/tour-munich-in-classic-bmw-convertibles-from-the-1930s-or-1950s).

But on 3 June, lest you think I was hallucinating the music, we both heard it. This time I had been forewarned. Both Hilde and Frau D made sure I knew about the procession in advance. It was Corpus Christi, another Catholic feast day celebrating the Eucharist, or body of Christ.

The parishioners, band, priest, and assorted churchgoers would proceed from the church, which is to the right of my window, would march past my building to a large concrete crucifix that stands at a corner to the left about 200 yards away. There they would say a mass then march back in the other direction to another large concrete crucifix that is to the right of my building for another ceremony of some sort. Toldja it was a very Catholic country! Of course all this means that the main street that runs in front of my building would be closed to traffic during that time.

The township had strung used-car-lot flags across the street a few days before. That morning people put flags at the windows, too.

The people across the street hung out embroidered banners.

Frau D even brought me a set of flags for my window so I put those out. Don’t tell her I removed a couple of them so they wouldn’t get in the way of my pictures.

It was a rainy day but not drenching. The procession soon made its way into view:

The fire local volunteer fire department fills many roles in a small German village. They escort all the processions like policemen. (I love it when people on the street are looking directly at my camera.)

I was most intrigued by these green outfits. I found out later on this group is the local fisherman’s guild. Nice hats!

Remember the rack of Dirndl (traditional dresses) in the department store from my last journal? I think I figured out why there is such a market for them:

Here’s the whole band back from Rome!

Here’s the rest of the fire department:

How does the priest rate his own canopy? It wasn’t raining that hard. Well, I guess he IS carrying the body of Christ!

All the faithful:

On their way back, they cut over a block and didn’t march right past my building. Notice I took this picture from the street a short way to the left of my building. James and I had gone down to the bus stop to catch a bus into Bamberg, but it never came because mass was still going on and the street was closed.

The procession reappeared to the right of my building as they congregated at the other concrete crucifix for the second ceremony.

James and I finally gave up and went back to the apartment. We eventually caught a later bus into town, but there was no hope for it during the marching.

I had originally planned to include the third episode of German Music on the Street, but it is proving to be such a long story with so many photos that I’m going to end this journal here. The third episode will be longer than both these put together, so stay tuned for that.

And I will leave you with this photo for no apparent reason – not sure why one of the putti in St. Martin’s church is playing cowboys and Indians.

Europe 2010 - 18 July

2010-07-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

Here’s a picture of the BEST tomatoes I’ve had in years at the local market. I think I’m turning into a tomato I’ve eaten so many this year. This one’s for a friend of mine – you know who you are!

Just an observation: I cannot write when I am listening to Tom Waits. For one thing, his writing is the absolute best in the world – he was probably Shakespeare in a former life – and I find myself focusing on his lyrics instead of writing. For another thing, I’m so humbled by his genius that anything that comes to my mind to write just sounds so lame by comparison. So now I’m turning him off until this journal is done. Sorry, Tom. This hurts me a lot more than it hurts you.

Back to business:

One of the (rather subordinate) reasons I came to Europe is to escape the Florida heat. If you know me at all you know that I just can’t stand the heat. I’ve suffered through many Florida summers and vowed never to do it again.

Well, this summer has turned out to be the hottest one on record for 30 years in Germany. Great. However, it’s much better than Florida heat because the humidity is quite a bit lower and it cools off at night. Just don’t ask me how great it is about 3:00 in the afternoon!

What makes it bad is that I have a third-floor apartment with no air conditioning – normally no A/C is necessary here. So when the temperature rises above 86, I have to leave my apartment about 1:00 in the afternoon and go somewhere cooler until about 7:00 p.m.

Sometimes I walk the two blocks down to the river and sit in the shade. But when the mercury gets 90 or more, I flee downtown. At times I go to sit in St. Martin’s church where it’s beautiful, quiet, and cool, though I can’t say much for the comfort level of the pews.

I have pored over the shelves and racks in most of the stores with A/C downtown. I saw this in a regular clothing store:

Yes, those are Lederhosen! They were next to the Dirndls.

Don’tcha just love Germany?

Anyway, most of the time I sit in the air-conditioned restaurant of one of the department stores. Fortunately I’ve discovered that there is free internet there.

So I hung out there last Friday (high temperature was 93 that day). I was making my way from there to the bus station and dropped into the bookstore to poke around and kill some time. As has happened to me a lot this year, I began to hear music in the vicinity and it sounded like it was getting closer.

Of course I grabbed my camera out of my bag, switched it on and took off the lens cap as I trotted out the door. It was just in time to see a parade making its way through the middle of the plaza!

I felt transported back to a medieval minstrel show, or at the very least a Cirque du Soleil performance. There were acrobats doing flips and riding unicycles, people playing music, some guys juggling. And like the children of Hamlin, we all followed the parade to the main square where they had set up lots of tables and a giant stage.

The parade opened an event called Bamberg Zaubert, which, loosely translated, means Enchanted Bamberg or Magical Bamberg. The festivities were to go on all weekend. Apparently this was the 12^th annual such fest which they define as an international art festival. Must’ve been performing arts.

Here are some pix of the parade. I don’t pretend to have a clue as to what some of these folks were dressed for!

There the mayor or somebody was giving a speech that lasted way too long for the heat. People weren’t sitting at the tables; they were all crowded in the shadow of the building next to the square. But the beer truck was doing a good business.

I had to go catch a bus and it was so hot I wouldn’t have stayed anyway, so I left the festivities and headed home.

However, today, Sunday, was cool enough to make me want to leave the house voluntarily instead of being forced out by heat. So I ventured back downtown and wandered around there for a few hours this afternoon. This was definitely a family-oriented event. There were face painters and toy sellers, as well as the requisite balloon vendor:

The place was shoulder-to-shoulder with crowds – I don’t remember ever seeing so many people there.

On the big stage in the square was a duo singing Hotel California and other cover tunes. Notice their group’s name was Choco Latte:

I saw this beautiful young child near the stage:

In other impromptu stage areas such as the steps of St. Martin’s church, by the fountains, near the river, near the old court house, etc., were individual performers or small groups. I recognized many of them from the parade pictures:

This woman was going on about how she used to live in a nearby building and incorporating some of the local folklore into the story:

As you can tell from the photos I couldn’t get near any of them because of the crowds. There were many groups I couldn’t get close enough to to figure out what the act was, let alone take photos of them. However, I don’t feel like I missed a thing!

By far the creepiest act was these two guys dressed like penguins and acting out what seemed to be a mating ritual complete with hoots and bobbing up and down. It was kinda scary for a family event. I wasn’t sure where they would go with the act, but eventually they waddled off and repeated the ritual in different places without actually consummating anything. Thank God.

I eventually found myself a spot under an umbrella at a sidewalk café. There I had an espresso (ok, two) and wrote for a while. I did a lot of people watching, too. It was a wonderful afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Fortunately the weather forecast has been downgraded from 90’s to low 80’s for the next few days. Tomorrow is my friend Hilde’s 74^th birthday so I’ll be headed out there for coffee and torte. Wish you were here!

I'll leave you with this for no good reason:

Europe 2010 - 10 July

2010-07-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

FIFA World Cup Soccer Tourney

A bit of good news first: I recently obtained my temporary residence/work permit to teach English in Germany! What a road! I’ll save that saga for a future travel journal. Today I want to tell you about World Cup Soccer – or Football. Whatever!

Important notes for this journal. Memorize these images; there will be a quiz later.

This is what the German flag looks like:

And this is what Germany’s soccer uniforms look like:

As most people know, Europeans, the English, and others around the world scoff at us Americans because we use the word ‘soccer’ instead of ‘football’ to describe the sport they play in the World Cup. I just want you to know, without going into sordid detail, that the word ‘soccer’ was actually coined IN ENGLAND in the 1860’s as a shortened version of ‘Association Football,’ their soccer organization. ‘Assoc. Football’ easily became ‘soccer.’ Since Americans were already evolving another game they liked at the time called football, soccer has been used in our country to define the round-ball version.

To catch every one up, FIFA runs the world competitions in soccer. It stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Every four years there is an international tournament. Countries apply to host the games much like they do for the Olympics. The US hosted them in 1994 – ok I admit I didn’t know that til today.

This year the games are in South Africa. Because of this there is a lot of South African emphasis going on in Europe. There are South African flags, hats, shirts, etc., to be had and the flavor is all over the TV commercials. My favorite commercial is one that features a dance invented by a South African using soccer moves. It’s called the Diski Dance because ‘diski’ is what they call the soccer ball there. Check out the YouTube video. It’ll make ya happy!

The other huge thing out of South Africa is what they call the ‘vuvuzela’ which is a meter-long (3 feet to you Americans) plastic horn that sounds like an obnoxious, pissed-off elephant. Apparently they use them a lot in the stadiums in South Africa during soccer games. A local grocery store had a scratch-off game in which you could win a vuvuzela. I didn’t win.

You can hear one or two of them from time to time on the street around here, especially when the games are on and especially when Germany scores. However, on the television, with thousands of them sounding off in the stadium, the games sound like a very loud beehive.

Here are a couple of fairly drunk guys outside my window after the German victory over England. Note the German flag flying at my window. For the record, I also have an American flag flying on the other side.

To say that Germans love their soccer is perhaps the understatement of the century. On regular season game nights, not to mention the World Cup competitions, the streets are deserted like there has been a rapture or something. The only sound besides crickets chirping is the occasional cheer raised when something good happens, like a goal. Then after the game, the streets are suddenly packed again, and horns are continuously blowing if Germany won the game. Strangely silent if they did not.

Here is an example of how rabid Germans are about soccer. When my husband was visiting last month, we caught a taxi during a game one night. Here is what the cab driver had rigged up on his dashboard - Internet TV!

I compare the atmosphere here in Germany surrounding the World Cup competition to the energy surrounding the last Olympics in the States. Everyone has been very stoked and excited about the games. Well, until Germany got their ass kicked by Spain last week. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The USA was knocked out of the competition a few weeks ago by Ghana who went on to the quarter-finals. Germany made it into the semi-finals and everyone here was absolutely convinced they would be the ultimate champs. There was much hullabaloo and festive spirit before the game.

I myself was feeling it and ventured to downtown Bamberg to see what it was like down there. I live in Bischberg, an outlying town, and had to take the bus into the city. The game started about 7:30 p.m. I first stopped at Ödrei, a restaurant specializing in Austrian food and wine that my hubby and I discovered a few weeks before.

When we visited it was just for what turned out to be quite excellent wine and tried an Austrian pinot noir that was stellar! It hadn’t occurred to me that they might grow pinot grapes in Austria. What do I know?

This time I was there for the Wiener Schnitzel (Wien=Vienna, get it?) and more wine. The schnitzel was great and, since they don’t sell the pinot by the glass, the waiter recommended a Blau Fränkischer (Blue Franconian) that was also stellar. If you visit me, we are going to this place.

I took a lot of pictures that day. I wanted to demonstrate how fanatic it is about the team here. Keep in mind that Germans aren’t predisposed to showing much enthusiasm about anything, but soccer is their exception. I’m grouping the following photos that I shot on the way into town into three categories: Flags on Cars and Houses and Flags on People.

FLAGS ON CARS AND BUILDINGS:

Lewinsky's bar where my husband and I watched a German basketball game:

The sign here says: "Us against Spain today!"

This freebie weekly newspaper isn't usually printed with its masthead in German colors. The headline is asking if this will be the end of Germany's World Cup run.

Even the fishermen (and women) showed their support:

FLAGS ON PEOPLE
These young ladies let me take their picture on the bus:

Remember the soccer jersey?

And I’m throwing in this series of photos just because I love the bicycle culture in Europe. I took all these photos from one spot. I just turned more or less in a 360.

After the game started, the streets indeed became deserted. I found all the people at cafes where they had set televisions outside so everyone could watch. This is not normal behavior – usually a television at a café, much less outside, is unheard of.

In the large square in the middle of Bamberg, Maximilianplatz, or Max Platz for short, they had set up an arena with a stage, food and drink vendors, and a giant television screen so that everyone could watch the game and some of the vendors could make a little money. Before the game and during half-time a couple of bands performed. They had a South African sound to them.

Admission was free but I noticed they were checking bags and backpacks at the entrances. I didn’t go in. The crowd seemed to be very young and a little too zealous about soccer for me. I just hung around and took pix. I noticed a lot of Americans there, especially older teens and younger 20-somethings, probably from the military base. Brought back lots of good memories.

And of course I noticed the photographer's daring feat to get the shot:

I left at half-time because I didn’t want to be around for the aftermath of that party whether Germany won OR lost. Turns out Germany lost that one to Spain, and, though the traffic immediately packed the streets in Bischberg outside my apartment once the game was through, there was a deafening absence of horns, car or vuvuzela.

Tonight Germany plays Uruguay for third place in the World Cup series 2010. Spain plays the Netherlands/Holland/Dutch team tomorrow for the title.

I’m a little confused about what to do with my flags once the World Cup is over. Do we leave them out or take them in? Guess I’ll check the traffic and neighbors tonight after the game to find out! I’ll let you know in my next post.

Hope you are enjoying your summer!

Europe 2010 - 27 May

2010-05-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

OMG, people, I realize I left out the best part of the apartment story!

Remember (and I know you remember because you hang on my every word and commit it to memory) that the first apartment I looked at in Bamberg was a one-room studio overlooking a courtyard in a semi-industrial area. Across from the apartment was a fitness studio that was being built out and would open soon. It was this construction that made the area look not quite so beautiful when we looked at the room.

Anyway, I had been so disappointed that I didn’t get this place. But, of course, now I have the larger place in Bischberg and that’s working out fine.

What I haven’t told you is this:

Two days after finding out that I didn’t get the studio apartment, I was having breakfast with my German friends at their house where I was staying. We were reading the local newspaper with our coffee. I always used that opportunity to maybe improve my German reading skills. It isn’t always clear to me what the articles say, but it has helped my comprehension somewhat.

I picked up one of the sections of the newspaper and there was an areal photo of the apartment building where the studio apartment was, along with the courtyard and fitness studio. The headline said something about Bavaria’s Biggest Brothel. Now, my German isn’t perfect by any means and I was sure I read it wrong. So I read a few lines of the text and it seemed to be saying that the “fitness studio” that was under construction was actually going to be a huge house of prostitution when it opened in June! The “fitness studio” part was apparently a smokescreen.

I still wasn’t sure if I was reading it correctly so I asked Hilde and Adi about it. They freaked out, which confirmed what I had thought. Bamberg was going to have a big Sex Park in June! And it would have been directly across the parking lot from my apartment! Wow!

About that time the phone rang. It was one of Hilde’s friends who knows me and knew I’d been looking at that room. She called to make sure we’d seen the article in the newspaper. Then Hilde’s brother called from next door to make sure we’d seen the article. Oh, this was the talk of the town for days! Hilde’s brother’s wry comment summed it up for me: “Good, Catholic Bamberg.” Bamberg was built as the Rome of the North back in the day and is very proudly, historically and emphatically Catholic. In between the sex shops!

Hilde delighted in telling people about the details contained in the article. They were importing professional Asian prostitutes (and I just want to teach English and am having delays over MY work permit!), it will cost 60 Euros ($75) just to get in. Then apparently there will be a sort of buffet line where customers can choose what they want a la carte and pay additional for whatever those things cost. Maybe I should have stated my profession as something more exotic on my work permit application!

Thank goodness I didn’t get the room. Just goes to show you I need to have faith in what happens to me. I can imagine the landlord of those apartments is pretty pissed at what all this will do for the property values there. And there were many follow-ups in the newspaper in subsequent days about debates in Bamberg’s City Zoning Committee and why this permit was given to the brothel without being publicized, etc. I don’t know whatever came of the issue, because the next week I moved into this other apartment and didn’t see a newspaper for a few days. By the time I did, there was no mention at all of the situation. Typical for the media, I suppose.

Anyway, just wanted to fill you in on “the REST of the story” (apologies to Paul Harvey). Things are moving along really well for me and I will send you that info as soon as things are definite. I don’t want to jinx anything!

Also, sorry that I have no photos to post, but I'm just not going down there to photograph the brothel just so you can see it!

And stay tuned for my adventures in the Czech Republic at the end of March.

Europe 2010 - 13 May

2010-05-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

After I left Munich on March 27 I caught a train to Linz, Austria. I had never been to Linz before and it was a midway point between Munich and Brno in the Czech Republic where I would meet my friends the following Monday. I wanted to check it out and also book a hotel with internet and maybe get some work done.

I stayed in the Park Inn Linz, which I would highly recommend to anyone. I was able to book it through Expedia and it was fantastic! This brand new four-star hotel had a café, restaurant, room service, and the best staff I’ve encountered in a hotel in a long time.

The part of Linz that I saw, and admittedly I didn’t see much of it, was beautiful. It was not yet tourist season, and I chose to go sightseeing early on a Sunday when most things were closed. It suited me that weekend somehow. I was still recovering from the transatlantic flight and also trying to get some work done, so I didn’t venture out much.

I walked down Landstrasse, the main drag that was only one block from my marvelous hotel, and reached the square.

It was Palm Sunday, a week before Easter. You could see evidence of this from the goodies in the bakery windows:

There was hardly anyone else around that early on a Sunday. But there was a lady who was sneaking bread crumbs to the pigeons, which someone told me was illegal there. It was hard to hide it, though, because they all flew around her in a giant pigeon-cloud. I tried to get pictures of her doing it, but she hid from me. She ended up dumping the food behind a phone booth and emerging from the other side looking all innocent:

There is a large advertising print and television campaign on this side of the pond for Nespresso machines. I haven’t seen this in the US, but maybe it’s there, too. I saw one of the posters in a shop window along the street. Guess who is the spokesperson?

There's a really funny TV commercial running over here with George being hit by a falling piano and manages to bribe his way out of heaven with his Nesprsso machine. Malkovich, of all people, plays God! Is that running in the States, too? If you haven't seen it, look it up on YouTube.

After about 10 minutes of walking I reached the main square. It was also mostly deserted with only the café workers setting out chairs and umbrellas. It was rather cold and threatening rain, but I guess they were expecting customers that day. In the middle of the square was a HUGE monument with gilded figures on top. The thing was massive!

Later research revealed that it’s known as Trinity Column. It’s over 65 feet tall, is Baroque, and was finished in 1723. It’s carved of white marble and was created as a dedication to the Holy Trinity by the guilds, Emperor and people of Linz because they had been delivered from war, fire and plague. Guess I’d be pretty thankful for that, too.

In the same square was a line of trees whose limbs were being trained onto frames that to me resembled music staves, though I guess they have too many horizontal lines. I thought the leafless branches were lovely like that.

And here are two more shots from the place I thought you might enjoy. One is something I bet Warner Brothers doesn’t know about:

The other just defies explanation entirely:

Past the square I came to a bridge – it was the Blue Danube flowing underneath! I love the way it actually looks blue in the photo. And so it did in person, too!

I turned back toward the hotel at this point and made my way to a very, very large church, Mariendom. It was so large that, even with my wide-angle lens, I could not fit the entire main tower in a shot from across the street:

And one from the side:

This neo-Gothic monster is referred to in Linz as the New Cathedral. It is the largest church in Austria and was built between 1855 and 1925. It’s dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, hence the name Mariendom (Mary’s cathedral).

This will give you some idea of how immense this church is. When I asked the uber-friendly young man at the desk at my hotel about what to see, he told me about this place and said it holds about 25 THOUSAND people. Thinking that this was Europe (everything is smaller) and that English was not his first language (he got his numbers mixed up), I corrected that figure in my mind to 25 HUNDRED. Well, in fact it holds more than 20,000 people! It has its own art gallery! But as enormous as this structure is, its tower height was limited to 134 meters (440 feet) because it was not allowed to be taller than St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. Dontcha just love Austrio-Hungarian religio-politics? (I think I just made up a word!)

Just inside the huge, wooden doors was a scale model of a small room that had a bed, a chair and a table. It was lighted and you could see it through a window in a large panel across the front of it. I tried to read the copious information beside this window but it was in German—high German at that, and all I could make out was something about a hermit in the tower.

I did some internet research—what did I ever do without the internet—and it turns out that, as part of an art project, they had built this room in full scale high in the tower of the church about 200 feet up. People submitted applications to become a hermit for a week and live in this room without access to the outside world. They began this project in November 2008 and lasted for about six months. There were 22 hermits in all.

They held daily “Silence with the Hermit” hours at 12:15 every day so people could sit in one of the chapels in silence to share the experience. A diary was passed from hermit to hermit and photographers Miklos Boros and Paul Kranzler documented everything. The diary and photos ended up in a book that I could have bought in the church gift shop but didn’t know about. What a fantastic idea! I wonder if they translated the book into English – I’d be very interested to see what hermits might write.

Apparently there was some demand among hermits in the Linz area, because now you can rent the hermit room starting this year for 560 Euros (about $710) per week, which includes meals, electricity and water plus something termed “Spiritual Care.” The room is available during Lent and Easter, during the summer, and during the Christmas season. I just don’t know what to think about that!

I don’t have any photos of this or anything else inside the cathedral because taking photos inside was prohibited. I didn’t want to incur the wrath of the clerics that were skulking around the edges! But here’s a good website, though it IS in German, with some impressive 360-degree views from towers and inside the place.

I mentioned that the cathedral has its own art gallery. It was free with some coins for the orphans, so I checked it out. The exhibit was uncomfortable. It paid homage to a group of nuns who care for ill patients. The artwork itself was a couple of sterile-looking hospital beds draped in hospital sheets that had been painted with body parts. Think Shroud of Turin. The paint was neon colors and the sheets were not only on the beds but also used as canopies. It was just weird. But I’m always glad to see art expressions whether I like them or not.

I am embarrassed to say that I did not try the famous Linzer torte while I was in Linz. Mea culpa. I figured I would get one at the train station on my way out of town, but there were none to be had there! But I wanted to tell you about them because I did see them in bakery windows. The recipe dates from 1625 (to us Americans that’s just before someone bought Manhattan Island from the Native Americans for $24 worth of beads). The torte looks somewhat like a flat cherry pie with thin lattice crust and sliced almonds around the edges. Instead of cherries, though, it has red currant jam as a filling. And what recipe do you know that has its own web site?

Well, that’s about all for Linz from me. I didn’t give it my usual attention, but I will be back one day. It’s a beautiful city with a wonderful, cozy energy, even though tiny hail pelted my head on the way back from the cathedral. I was glad to have my new, white, weatherproof Columbia jacket whose name is Lindsey Vonn.

Stay tuned for Brno and the other end of the spectrum!

Europe 2010 - 8 May

2010-05-08T23:06:00.001-07:00

On my way back to my room the previous day (March 25), I’d noticed a very large church across the street from the hotel in Munich. Later in the day I’d stepped inside on an impulse and seen the most intriguing mosaic entranceway! I resolved to come back the next day when I had a little more energy and presence of mind, as well as lack of jet lag.

And so I did. I made a couple of sandwiches from the provisions I’d gotten the day before, stowed them in my bag alongside my camera and set out to get some photos. I knew from the map that there was a river on the other side of the church and hoped to find a good spot for a picnic on this warm, sunny spring day.

I ventured across the street first. The church was called St. Maximilian. It had two large belltowers and the large, resonant bells gave me my bell fix every hour during my stay. I really miss bells when I’m in the US or anywhere else they aren’t present. I feel like I become personally acquainted with the bells themselves somehow since each one has its own voice.

The door I’d used the previous day was locked, so I walked around the ivy-covered wall to the main entrance. No one was around the entire time I was there, so I took all the photos I wanted. I looked for a sign to prohibit that, but there was none to be found. I liked that a lot because I then didn’t have to steal the shots!

The church was enormous and sparsely furnished and decorated. It looked like it had been completely stripped bare then only a few parts and pieces put back in. I hope they are in the middle of a restoration, but I couldn’t really tell. The web site didn’t have much about it except the ubiquitous, “… destroyed in WWII…” information and Mass schedules.

The altar was beautifully adorned with the same style of mosaic work I’d seen on the side entrance.

It had a huge organ in the loft at the back as well.

I reached the side entrance I’d seen the day before from the inside.

Here’s a detail of the mosaic work:

As an example of how sparsely decorated the place was, I turned around from the mosaic entrance and shot the door opposite:

And I really like the hinge detail from that door:

After finishing in the church, I continued past it to the river. I was surprised that the river was so close to the church. Alongside the church and parallel to the river was a street, then a bike path, then a walking path, then the river. The river is the Isar, referred to by Germans as the Green, Green Isar, and in fact it did have a strange green tint. I learned later that minerals are responsible for this and that the water, which comes lately off a glacier, is very clean. I also learned that it flows through the English Gardens in Munich, the main city park. I heard nude people hang out there, but I didn’t get there to witness that in person.

I expected a park area on this side of the river but there was none to speak of. After almost getting mown down by a couple of bikes, I walked downriver to the left until I reached the nearest bridge. It was very windy on the bridge that made it very cold, but I stopped to shoot pictures anyway. You can see the green tinge in the water fairly well in this shot:

There were dozens and dozens of people in the park area on the opposite side of the river enjoying the sunshine. I was delighted to see dozens of dogs also. Germans love dogs and take them everywhere. It is not uncommon to see one in a restaurant under a table. One hardly ever hears one, though, because they are so well behaved. Since I love dogs, too, I had a great time watching them cavorting along the river and even in the water.

I discovered some delightful graffiti near the bridge as well. If ever graffiti can be positive, this was it:

I walked upriver about a kilometer, passing the church on the opposite bank.

After a while I chose a place to have my picnic. It was just beyond the little island you see in this photo:

I sat near the water and watched the goings-on and had nearly finished the first of my sandwiches when I noticed what looked like a dust storm kicking up upriver. People were hurriedly folding blankets and rushing to don jackets and dashing away with their dogs at the onslaught.

But that was not just a dust storm; it was a rainstorm! And a cold one at that. I, too, hurriedly stuffed the second sandwich back in my bag, donned my jacket and shielded my camera from the cold, cold rain. Those clouds you see in the photos above were apparently the edge of a front moving quickly in. I had to use my scarf to cover my nose and mouth from the driving dust and hunched over to protect my camera from the elements. I pushed against the wind to reach the second bridge and paused in the wind to take a photo of the recently densely populated park, which was now nearly deserted. I was amazed at how quickly it had happened.

Suddenly the voice of Forrest Gump sounded in my head as he referred to Jenny: “And just like that, she was gone!” That’s what happened to our beautiful sunny day! Yeah, me and Forrest are doing Europe!

Notice the church tower on the left in this photo. The first bridge I crossed is in the far distance. As I was taking pictures from this vantage point, there was a young man with long hair and tattoos, probably near 20, also taking pictures with an ancient Pentax from the same spot. As I checked out his equipment (and I mean “camera” for those of you with dirty minds!) I noticed he was checking out my Nikon! Some things are universal!

Fortunately that first blast of rain was all the precipitation we were to have that day. It immediately become sunny again, although it was much chillier than before. On the way back to my room, I saw some more happy graffiti:

That about does it for Munich this year. The next morning I caught a train for Linz, Austria, where I would spend a couple of days before journeying to the Czech Republic and rendezvousing with my friends in Brno.

Here are some shots from the train station that morning, including a self-portrait:

Europe 2010 - 5 May

2010-05-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

Munich 2010

I landed in Munich on 25 March 2010. I have to say that I was not as tired as quickly this year as last during my journey, but by the time I collected my bag and got out of the airport, I was nearing zombie state. I managed somehow to find my way to the subway and board the correct train for the main train station where I then managed to board the correct connection and get off at the right stop for my hotel. I will say, however, that I totally wish I had just gotten a taxi. It would have SO been worth the extra Euros.

Because the plane had landed at 7:00 a.m. Munich time and it had taken me only two hours or so to get from the airport to my hotel, the Ghotel Munich-Zentrum. It was only 9-ish when I arrived. Probably goes without saying that the room wasn’t ready yet. But I want to state unequivocally here and now that the young woman at the desk was one of the best service people I’ve met in my travels anywhere at any time! Check-in time was not until 3:00 p.m., but she tried very hard to find me a vacant room. Alas, none were to be had. I would have to wait. However, she came around the counter and pulled my luggage behind the desk for me to keep it safely until my return. I’d highly recommend this hotel not only for the clean, quiet accommodations, but mostly because of the outstanding service.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day so I set out with only my small backpack and camera in hand to kill some time. One of my favorite quotes is from travel writer Rick Steves who stated something to the effect that Americans kill time and Europeans pass time. So I tried to approach my wait from that perspective. Aside from being dead on my feet, I enjoyed the hours between then and check-in very much.

My girl at the desk gave me some directions and I headed toward the famous Marienplatz. Between me and Marienplatz, however, was the Viktualienmarkt, a huge, permanent, daily open-air market with every kind of fresh vegetable, plant, cheese, meat, beer, you name it. Here are some shots I did in the market:

And it was the week before Easter so the Germans had set out their coolest Easter bunnies as well.

Just a couple of city blocks away, I came to Marienplatz, a huge square with a large, beautiful white Flemish Gothic building that was built at the turn of the 20th Century. The building is the New Town Hall. The square is called Marienplatz after the Virgin Mary, whose protection the townspeople were trying to win against a cholera epidemic.

In the middle of the tower is where the even more famous Glockenspiel is located.

I sat across the square from the tower at outdoor tables of a restaurant and ordered the regional specialty, Weisswurst. It means white sausage. It is served with a large Bavarian pretzel. I was so tired I almost forgot to photograph it! The Weisswurst was much tastier than I expected for tourist food, and it did not disagree with my stomach the way some sausages do. I highly recommend it.

I finished my meal about the time the Glockenspiel show was to begin. Every day at 11:00 a.m., noon and, I think, 5:00 p.m., the figures begin to move and the top tier fights some famous battle. At the triumph, the lower tier figures dance around whilst the carillon plays throughout. Ok, that’s the info for the tourists. As a photographer, I was more interested in the people:

And I call this one, “Welcome to Europe.”

Because it was nearing noon, I decided to hoof it back to the hotel to see if a room was ready. On the way, I saw this he-man construction worker operating a remote control for a crane across the street. I took the shot because no self-respecting American construction worker would be caught dead in those pants!

I also saw this guy working on a clock and liked the composition.

When I got back to the hotel, I was immensely grateful that a room had opened up. The staff there took very good care of me and I soon was in my clean, shiny room. I promptly fell into bed and slept for about four hours, which was the most welcome sleep I’ve had in a year.

Since I’d visited Munich before, I was in no rush to venture out and see any of the city that evening. I did make my way back to the Viktualienmarkt and bought some coffee, juice, bread, cheese and veggies for the kitchenette in my room, but I stayed in and availed myself of the internet connection and managed to get some work done.

So that was my first day on the Continent this year. Stay tuned…!

Europe 2010 - 1 May

2010-05-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

I am posting this from my new place in Germany! Or, more accurately, my very old place in Germany. It has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride to get here, but I guess in the grand scheme of things, it was a little roller coaster.

I left the States on March 24 (seems like more than five weeks ago) and landed in Munich. After a couple of days there I spent the next couple of nights in Linz, Austria. After that I met my Czech friends in Brno and spent a couple of weeks with them, including Easter. All this you will read about in subsequent travel journals.

But I am so proud and grateful to have made it to this apartment that I want to start with that story.

Once my Czech friends had exhausted me with all the photo and other activities, I came to Bamberg, Germany, on April 9. My wonderful, long-time friends Hilde and Adi allowed me to stay with them – I have to give them full credit here: they had no idea how long I was going to stay with them, only that I was looking for a job in Germany.

View from Hilde and Adi’s terrace:

The idea was for me to come to Germany and get a freelance work permit, which also includes a residence permit. Then I could get any kind of work as long as I paid German taxes. I have been in touch with some language schools who had told me that, if I had said freelance permit then I could get work from them. A couple of these schools run online video teaching courses, which is what I want to do.

In addition, most of you know that I write for online magazines, which I planned on continuing in order to support myself while I acquired the freelance permit. And I have done that. It has certainly helped offset my travel expenses so far.

Turns out that some of the information I had researched online before leaving the States wasn’t quite accurate. Go figure. The information I had was that I should go to the Auslaendersbewesen (Foreigner’s Office) and get a freelance permit, then I could get an apartment and start seeking freelance work. Cake.

After visiting the German work permit office, things began to become clearer, if more complicated. The procedure for a freelance permit is as follows: get an address, register as having said address at the local court house, get insurance, get a tax number from the Finance Office, then get the residence permit from the Auslaendersbewesen. THEN get work. At least I hope this information is accurate.

The thing that has been the biggest obstacle has been that Hilde and Adi live in a little rural village outside Bamberg and there is no internet connection there. It isn’t just that they don’t have internet service, it’s that it isn’t available there if they wanted it. The lines haven’t been laid and the hills around it are such that cell phone signals don’t usually even get through. Add that to the fact that they also live two kilometers (1.6 miles) from the nearest bus stop, and you can see that I was feeling stranded and very, very frustrated indeed.

To further complicated matters, even if I got to the bus stop, there are no wifi hotspots in Bamberg. Imagine! In this most high-tech of countries, no going to Panera for the afternoon to work, etc. I have deduced that, since everyone has internet service at home, there is apparently no need for hotspots.

Without internet, no work for Karren. And no contact with sources that may have helped me find an apartment or any other info that would move things along.

In addition, out of the three internet cafes listed for Bamberg, only one actually still exists and it is just an area of a bookstore downtown with three computers. I can’t use my own laptop and their computers didn’t have word processors. I resolved to suck it up and not work for a few weeks. Aargh!

Anyway, Hilde, bless her, immediately set about helping me find an apartment. I have to admit that it went very quickly and smoothly right off the bat. We looked at ads in the classified section of the local newspaper. She called the most promising one. These ads are placed by real estate agents, so let me explain how apartment rental is set up here:

The apartment has a monthly rental fee called Kaltmiete (KM), or “cold rent.” Which is the basic monthly charge. Then there is Nebenkosten (NK), or “next-to costs,” which means extra monthly charges for water, sewage, trash pick-up, heating and anything else that is provided by the landlord. So an apartment at KM 200 Euros a month might have NK of 100, totaling 300 a month. Then there is a two-month KM security deposit and first month’s KM and NK up front. In addition to all this, the real estate agent gets two month’s KM commission plus tax, which is 19%. In this example, the 200 KM apartment would cost 1,164 Euros just to move in. In dollars that’s just over $1,500. Whew! I didn’t know any of this going in, mind you.

We met with the real estate agent on a Friday at the apartment’s address, which was on a relatively quiet street in Bamberg near the harbor area, a neighborhood that is fairly industrial-looking. There was a butcher shop on the street and a wine shop next to it. Between those two shops was a driveway to a courtyard area where there was parking. The apartment building had doctors’ office on the ground floor facing the courtyard, and a new fitness studio was being built on the other side of the parking lot. It was not very attractive, I have to admit.

But the apartment was! It was a spacious one-room studio with a built-in kitchenette. It had new laminate floors and was renovated a couple of years ago. Lovely. And internet access was included in the NK. I told him I’d take it on the spot. It was 195 Euros KM and 90 NK. Not bad for the location and quality of the place. It was not furnished, though, and there was an additional 250 Euros security deposit to cover the new flooring and a glass shower enclosure.

I was very happy! Hilde and Adi were also very excited and told me I couldn’t find a nicer place for the money in that location. We even drove to a furniture store that day to window-shop. What a relief to have a place! The real estate agent promised to call with details the following Monday.

That was on a Friday. That next week I managed to figure out a way to use my online email drafts function as a makeshift word processor, which has enabled me to work at the bookstore downtown, albeit more slowly than usual. So I’ve been trekking it to Bamberg each day for the last couple of weeks and writing there. Hilde and Adi, plus their various and sundry relations in the village have been generous enough to give me rides to the bus stop or to Bamberg each day so that I’ve only had to walk the 2km home in the evenings. I don’t mind it because the weather has been wonderfully sunny and cool, plus I’ve enjoyed the exercise.

I have been so grateful to work, but the chairs there could be a little softer! Still, I have no way to post photos or anything else off my own Macbook, which is why there have been no travel journals until now.

On Wednesday Hilde called the real estate agent because we hadn’t heard anything from him. He said that it wasn’t for sure that the apartment was mine because so many people wanted it. But, if I could bring him my pay statements from the last three months plus a letter from my employer saying they are employing me BY NOON THAT DAY, then he would add the info to the application for the landlord.

Crap! All the info I had about my writing jobs was online! Hilde called the bookstore and asked if I could print something out there from the internet. No, they didn’t have a printer for customers. So we jumped in the car, amid great stress and angst, and sped to Bamberg to try to find somewhere to print something. Long story short, we ended up going into a Vodafone mobile phone shop and begging the guy there to let me print something out. He did, and was very accommodating about it, though I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to do that. I tipped him 10 Euros for his trouble.

We then sped to the real estate agent’s office and dropped off the info. By this time I pretty much knew I wasn’t getting the apartment after all. If they had so many applications, a foreigner without a residence permit wasn’t going to fill the bill, I’m sure. The roller coaster had dropped.

I went to the bookstore and wrote that day anyway, but I felt more like hiding under the desk instead. When I returned to Hilde and Adi’s that evening, Hilde told me that the agent had called and that I hadn’t gotten the place. Surprise, surprise.

However, though this generous woman was getting her near-death of a cold, she had called another ad in the paper for me. While that particular place had been taken before she’d called, this second real estate agent said a place had just come up on the online listings. This new listing was in Bischberg, the small town where the bus stop nearest Hilde and Adi is. It’s where I wanted to live in the first place. It was four-room apartment with proper kitchen and bath and the KM was just five Euros more than the studio apartment in Bamberg! Sounded perfect as far as we could tell.

We had an appointment with this agent on the following Friday afternoon. That morning, thinking I would need the paperwork again, I asked Hilde’s niece, who lives next door and happened to drop by that morning, if she knew of any place I could print something from the internet. She said her daughter had a connection and printer and that I could come over immediately and print out whatever I want. In addition, she was taking her husband to the doctor that morning and she would gladly give me a ride to the bus stop. Things were working out for me once again!

I acquired the necessary papers and ride to town and worked a little. Hilde met me at 12:15 to meet the real estate agent. God bless her for chaperoning me like that!

I instantly liked the agent much better than the first guy. Also, we were able to see the apartment an hour later. We met the landlady, Frau Duetsch (PLEASE don’t say douche!), an 85-year old woman with perfect skin and hearing. The apartment was the top story of her house on Bischberg’s main drag. The street-level is a flower shop and apartment for the flower shop proprietor, the second level is Frau D’s place, and the third is the rental apartment. This is a common setup in Europe.

Frau D showed us the place, a really, really old place with loud, creaky wooden floors and very low ceilings. It was way, way uglier than the studio in Bamberg. And it was furnished in early vintage Samantha Stevens with “old lady” slipcovers and tablecloths. But it WAX furnished. And it has a large patio on the top floor adjacent to the bedroom.

It seemed that Frau D was trying to sell the place to us! Even though I was a little disappointed with the appearance of the place, it’s in the location I wanted, it’s very secure, it’s furnished, it’s big enough for two people, and the price was definitely right. Plus she only wanted one month’s KM as a security deposit and shaved off some money from the NK because I won’t have a TV. And she would call to have the electricity transferred to my name so I wouldn’t have to do any of that.

I took the place! We set the move-in date as May 1 and signed a contract. She didn’t ask for the salary paperwork at all. There is no required lease term and I only have to give two month’s notice when I move out; most places require three. I have to admit to not being quite so excited about this place as the first, but it’s functional and will be a good starting place.

The day after that we had dinner with Hilde’s daughter and her husband. Werner is a retired techie and told me that I should get a “Web and Walk Stick” from the phone company which would allow me internet access anywhere in Germany for about 30 Euros a month. It’s like an air card that I plug into my laptop so I could work in cafes, parks, airports, virtually anywhere except the village where Hilde and Adi live!

So here I am at my German address, writing to you on my Web and Walk Stick! I’m going to change it to residential service if I can, though, because it isn’t as fast as I need. Anyway, once I removed all the “old lady” textiles and rearranged some of the furniture, I like the place a lot more than I did on first impression. But I still have a lot of work to do!

Next week I go to register as a resident and begin the freelance work permit process. I’m sure you will be hearing about how that turns out!

Here’s a photo of the outside of my new digs. I'm the windows on the top floor above the flower shop:

Europe 2009 - Wednesday 13 May

2009-05-13T14:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 13 May, was Karren’s Day!

In my last journal I left you as I was boarding a train from Nürnberg to Bamberg on the last leg of my journey. I was met at the train station by my great friends, Hilde and Adi. They were our landlords when my husband was stationed in the Army there twenty some-odd years ago. I’ve kept in touch ever since and they are always my magnificent hosts when I visit each year.

Though the train stop was Bamberg, Hilde and Adi actually live in a very small village about 15 minutes away called Weipelsdorf. It’s like going home when I go there – most people in the village are related to Hilde somehow and they all know me. I spent my last four days in Europe there. I am always sad during my last week in Europe and life in Weipelsdorf is on the opposite end of the excitement spectrum, to say the least. So I have lots of time to brood.

I used the time helping Hilde (when she lets me) and generally just being fed with writing in between. Hilde teaches me German cooking, I write it down and photograph it, then we all eat it. Pretty great hookup, really.

I also watch German TV with them at night, which is a wonderful experience. Wer Wird Millionär, the German version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, is a staple, and Hilde has some soap she’s addicted to. Only one, though, thank goodness. And then there are the ubiquitous German variety shows, like German Lawrence Welk shows.

However, I was to have a slightly more exciting day that week. Many of you have seen my Nativity set that I’ve been collecting for about six years now. The pieces are from a line by LEPI and are handcarved in Northern Italy. In fact, I wrote an article about them on one of my freelance sites.

The place I buy these beautiful pieces is a shop owned by Georg Ramspeck in Bamberg, an acquaintance of Hilde’s. In fact, she’s the one who steered me there in 2003 when I bought the first pieces. Herr Ramspeck knows me now, and I’m sure he loves to see me coming. I always tell myself I’ll just buy one piece, but I always leave his shop with more than that. I also got my cuckoo clock there and several other wood-carved items and gifts.

Anyway, Thursday 13 May was my day to visit Herr Ramspeck. Hilde called him to let him know I was coming (she always does that), and Adi dropped us off downtown for our day out. We arrived early because I told them I wanted to shoot some digital pix of the city.

The first stop was Klein Venedig, or Little Venice, a row of houses on the river that formerly served as housing for local fishermen. Though I love this little scene, it cracks me up that every row of houses on a river north of Italy is called Little Venice, no matter where it is. Or Venice of the North, like Amsterdam.

The next thing we saw was the new statue of Apollo that had been installed near where we began our trek through the city. The sculpture had caused quite a stir locally and was apparently very expensive – I’ve heard 150,000 Euros (about $215,000). Here it is:

While I appreciated the time and technique the artist put into it, I didn’t like it. There’s no way I would have ever known it was supposed to be Apollo and the colors were strange, not to mention the weird blue eyes. But there it was! Hilde didn’t like it, either.

It was installed as part of Bamberg’s Sculpture Path (Skulpturenweg), an ongoing project that has installed about six large, outdoor sculptures so far in the town. I’ve seen some of the other artworks and they are all very modern like this one. Such a contrast to the backdrop of historical buildings. But that’s Germany. Mixing old and new and not thinking twice about it.

It was about 8:00 a.m. and the service people were preparing the town for the day. My favorite part of the day is early morning and it’s my favorite time to be wandering around a European town, too.

The first person we saw was a chimney sweep, which is very good luck, indeed!

Then I had to dodge a trash truck:

Next I saw the postman on his appointed rounds:

Next we walked by the Schlenkerla, the green building in the picture.

It’s where they brew and serve smoke beer in a former Dominican monastery. The beer is wonderfully tasty – like a smoky Guinness. Click here to see the article I wrote about it.
In Europe, there are sculptures on corners of buildings for no apparent reason:

The ambulance was cruising around, but no lights or sirens today!

The trash men showed up again – I though for sure the truck would get stuck in that narrow alley, but it didn’t.

A local brewery getting ready for the Biergarten. Hilde told me she spent a lot of time at this place growing up because her parents were friends of the family that own it.

Bamberg’s famous Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus). It’s built in the middle of the river, so the foundation had to be shaped like a boat.

Since it was built on a bridge, there had to be a pass-through. Here’s the approach from the left:

While Hilde, who shops like a maniac, was looking for bargains in her favorite dress shop, I shot this picture that has the Bamberg Cathedral (Bamberger Dom) in the background. Click here to see the article I wrote about it on one of my freelance sites.

Finally it was time to visit Herr Ramspeck. His shop is very near where we were walking, but it didn’t open until 10:00.

Let me show you how beautiful these pieces are. Here is Mary and Baby Jesus from the set I chose for myself:

One of the main reasons I chose this line, aside from the gorgeous craftsmanship – each one is carved and painted by hand after an original carving by a master artist – is that Mary looked like a Botticelli painting to me.

Aside from the first purchase I made back in 2003, which was the Holy Family plus Three Kings and a camel, it has always been difficult to choose what I would buy on my visits to Herr Ramspeck. There are over 100 pieces in the set and I get overwhelmed looking at the shelf. However, after an hour or so picking up each piece and salivating, I saw this guy. Can you tell who he is?

I made up my mind immediately because, first of all, his body language tells you he’s the no-room-at-the-innkeeper. Secondly, though, he looks so German. The apron, vest and towel are all things you might see on a modern-day German pub owner. I also bought a dog to help my shepherd with his flock; he was a German shepherd, of course!

After a nice visit with Herr Ramspeck – I’m sure he keeps my credit card on file – we trekked several more places that Hilde wanted to go. As she shopped, I photographed. Here is a scene that I almost missed in front of an ice-cream shop – life imitates art, I guess.

And here was a sentry for a clothes shop:

For lunch we stopped at the Tivoli Italian restaurant owned by the father of Hilde’s nephew’s fiancé. The food was great and, being family and all, the service was stellar:

Tivoli’s courtyard where Hilde’s nephew wed the owner’s daughter last June:

And the view from the courtyard overlooking the Regnitz River:

The food was simply delicious. It was not heavy like some Italian places have. We had wine and an excellent bruschetta appetizer followed by a family-style dish with three types of pasta: spaghetti with a light cream sauce, penne in a tomato-olive sauce, and tortellini in a vodka cream sauce. There was SO MUCH food! We couldn’t possibly have finished it all, though Hilde tried to shame me into eating more, saying they would think we didn’t like it.

The deal was that I would pay for lunch, but I had to end up forcing money on Hilde because she paid, saying that they might not give me a discount since they didn’t know me. Hello! I’m with YOU! Anyway, it was an attempt to get me not to pay, but at 20 Euros (about $30), we got off cheap for that spread. And you don’t have to tip in Europe!

We waddled back to the meeting place where Adi picked us up. The day had been so fun that I couldn’t imagine it getting better. But it did. The last stop of the day was at the Mini dealership in Bamberg.

Hilde and Adi’s tenant manages the local Mini dealership and she invited me to visit her there. Her name is Michaela and she is such a card! She had much Mini swag to give to me when I got there and we had a nice visit, although we were wiped out from walking all over Bamberg that day.

Here’s me in my new car – or the car I will someday own (Michaela says it is hers, but I bet if I offered her enough money I’d drive away in it):

We dragged ourselves back home after that, exhausted but definitely happy. It had been such a long time that just Hilde and I spent time together like that. What a wonderful treat at the end of my trip!

Two days later I was on a train to Frankfurt then boarding a plane to come home. The trip was only a month long. I know, I know – a whole month! However, I’ve been used to two- and three-month trips in the past and this one was just too short. You might not realize it because it’s taken me so long to finish the journals. Just blame the iPod for taking up precious writing time during the journey!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the journals, nonetheless. I’m already saving and planning an even longer trip for spring 2010, so I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

Stay tuned for a couple of domestic adventures I’ve had during the intervening seven months!

Europe 2009 - Friday 8 May - Monday 11 May

2009-05-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous journal, I was headed for Nürnberg, Germany, on Friday, 8 May, by train from the Czech Republic where I’d been visiting my photo friends.

The train ride was pleasant and noneventful, thank goodness. I didn’t get as much writing done on the train this trip because of my new gadget, the iPodTouch. I spent lots of time listening to music and podcasts, especially stories from Moth.com, P.R.I. and other cool sites. It really cut into my writing, though, so I’ll have to rethink my iPod time for the next trip!

Upon my arrival in Nürnberg, or Nuremberg for you Americans, I began the search for my hotel that I’d booked through Expedia a few days before. I had no problem! It was only a few steps from the train station, a neighborhood that, generally, means seedy characters and ratty accommodations. But the area around the train station here was not like other cities like Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

Nürnberg’s train station is just across the street from the Old Town, which I wanted to visit, and it has a great underground walkway to Old Town that keeps you out of the mad traffic above. Plus it’s not too threatening at night like some other places I’ve been.

Nürnberg’s train station:

My accommodations, the Hotel Marienbad, were located on Eilgutstrasse, which translates into “Express Mail Street” – maybe there was a post office there or something. Anyway, this place was great! I found it with no problem just about 100 yards from the side door on the train station. The directions I’d been given by Expedia were spot on, and they were expecting me. The girl behind the desk spoke excellent English, as did all the other staff I spoke to that weekend. The room was spacious and light, with a big bed, desk and TV. There were even two channels in English! I also had a private bathroom, always a treat, even if it was the size of an airplane bathroom with a tiny shower tacked on. It was all I needed!

I’d visited Nürnberg before. My first memory of it was in December 1987 when my then-new husband was introducing me to Germany. I’d just arrived a week or so before – my very first trip to Europe! - and we visited Nürnberg’s Christmas market, one of the most famous of Christmas markets.

I can still remember how bone-cold it was and how the gluhwein (mulled wine) warmed us as we strolled through several squares crowded with stalls displaying goodies and ornaments. I had my first Lebkuchen then, Nürnberg’s famous gingerbread Christmas cookie, and I can still hear the chestnut vendor singing out, “Heissen Maroni – Heissen Maroni!” as we passed.

I’ve been back two or three times since, but it was always with someone, so I wanted to go back and poke around by myself. Plus my Czech friends, who always have so much for me to do, had just worn me out!

Nürnberg, a Bavarian city about an hour by train from Bamberg where my German friends live, dates from 1050 became an important trade center between Italy and Northern Europe under the rule of the Prussian Hohenzollern family early on. It was the center of the German Renaissance in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries. It weathered the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War then became an important industrial center in the 19^th Century.

Nürnberg’s Old Town Wall:

Gate into the Old Town Handwerkerhof, a section of little shops selling traditional German items such as wooden puppets, dirndls, and wurst. Although I was able to see it during my visit, it was closed the day I took this photo:

Medieval towers on the Old Town Wall and just inside it:

The stone structure on the left in this photo is the base of the taller tower in the previous photo. The umbrella in the center of the shot is in front of an Irish pub where, in earlier days, I downed many an Amaretto shot with Guiness chasers while singing Irish drinking songs!

The first pocket watches, known as Nürnberg eggs were invented there, and it was the site of the first German railroad. The Nazis used Nürnberg as an important center and much of their artillery and war machines were produced there. And of course, everyone has heard of the Nuremberg Trials in which the Nazi leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes.

It was heavily bombed during WWII, but the huge Old Town section has been rebuilt to its Medieval glory and the rest of the city is an important industrial center today.

I was a little disappointed that I’d landed in Nürnberg during one of their semi-annual flea markets, or Trempelmarkt, Germany’s largest. Therefore, the Old Town was wall to wall with tables of everything you can think of, crap to treasure to produce to you name it. Plus it was mobbed with people. I had intended to get some good shots of the cathedral and some people-watching photos, but it was just too crowded and frantic. I got a few shots but decided to save that project for Sunday after it was over.

I got these shots, though, which might give you an idea of what it was like:

You may know that the artist Albrecht Dürer, Germany’s most famous artist, is from Nürnberg, and I got the shot below of his house. He lived during the Renaissance and one of his most famous paintings is Adam and Eve. Though there were many paintings of Adam and Eve before his in 1507, his was the first to depict them as very real people with realistic human bodies. In addition, as with all of Dürer’s work, it is very photo-realistic as well.

At the summit of the highest point in Nürnberg, and just behind Dürer’s house, is the huge Imperial Castle. Though I didn’t go in, I certainly climbed up the steep stairs and found a most beautiful garden there!

Poking about the castle grounds was relaxing and peaceful. There were huge shade trees and many, many gardens with benches. There weren’t so many people around and it was a great break. On my way down from the hill on the other side of the castle, I witnessed a group of tux-clad men chatting just outside an arched gate. I hung around a little to see what they were up to, and presently a bride and her bridesmaids emerged from the gate and they all got into large black German cars and drove away as a small but tearful group waved them goodbye.

Then, back to reality, I wandered through the flea market again, making my way back to the hotel. On the way, I saw this car:

Yes, it says what you think it does on the side. I’d seen this model of car in Liberec before and later tracked it down on the web. It’s actually a Smart car made by Mercedes – you Americans have seen the abbreviated model that looks rather like a large roller skate. This is their roadster that I don’t think they sell in the States. The writing on the side is an ad for a nightclub, I believe. I hope so, anyway!

This next photo is a picture of white asparagus, or Spargel, as the Germans call it. It is the same variety as green asparagus, but it is grown under a mound of sand and compost that prevents it from getting any sun, thus the lack of green color. I’ve seen many fields of rows of Spargel mounds with (usually) women bent over them during harvest. Spargel is available only in the spring and whole markets and festivals are devoted to it in certain locales. I had two meals of it while in Nürnberg because it was in season and all the restaurants were featuring it.

I had never seen it in America before this year; however, I actually was able to purchase some in Florida this Fall at a SuperTarget store! It was great because I am working on a German travel/recipe book and was able to test the recipe I had written down at my friend Hilde’s this trip.

After my first night at the wonderful Hotel Marienbad, I came down to breakfast. I said hello to the cherubic red-haired desk clerk and stepped into the dining room. It was mostly deserted so I chose a table by the window that had three place settings on it. The desk clerk, who was also doubling as the dining room attendant, had followed me in and said, “Yes, it’s ok, you can sit there,” and proceeded to move the other two place settings off my table.

It was then I realized I’d breached European etiquette. I remembered too late that hotels set up the tables according to who has paid for breakfast along with their room and how many are in the traveling party. So, I’d inadvertently sat at a table they’d set up for a party of three. My table, set for one, was on the other side of the room. You’re supposed to look for a table set for the number of people in your party and sit there. I’d forgotten that. Fortunately, Europeans are aware that Americans don’t usually know this and make allowances such as my hostess did that day.

I polled my hostess about where might be a good café to sit and write since I was far behind where I wanted to be in my journal. I wanted to avoid the flea market crowd and catch up a little. She recommended Literaturhaus Café that was only a couple of blocks inside the Old Town walls.

The day was bright, warm and sunny and I enjoyed the short walk to the café. It was a huge place and the side facing the street was fitted with sliding glass doors that they had opened so that the inside tables could enjoy the weather just like the outer patio tables. I sat just inside the open doors because all the smokers were outside and had a great people-watching position as I wrote. I must have been there four hours or more, enjoying the coffee, the weather and the quiet time.

At one point these two men, dressed almost alike, took up a position at a table in front of me. I couldn’t help getting a couple of shots of them as they watched the people passing by:

As I wrote, I noticed many people coming into and out of a store just opposite the café. It was such a diverse group, from retirees to dreadlocked hikers, that I wondered what it was all about. Turns out that the place was a book shop associated with the Neues Museum (New Museum) in the square just beyond.

This shop had, I’m not kidding you, EVERY art book known to man! Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling with rows and rows of shelves in between. Anything you could imagine in the way of art history, artist biographies, architecture, painting, drawing, comics, stained glass, sculpting, eras, fads, movements, trends, disciplines – you name it, it was there in many languages. Oh, my! I spent another couple of hours just reading titles and perusing the stacks in there. What a treat! I’ve never seen anything like it. I could have spent a million dollars in there!

The next day was Sunday. It was Mother’s Day and I was out early doing some more photos. First stop was the impressive opera house just down the street:

This picture I’d shot on Saturday of a lost shoe that had been placed on the base of a column of the St. Lorenz cathedral set the stage for a series of photos I ended up doing on Sunday:

Because the flea marketers had packed up their tables and goods and hauled them away the night before, I found a somewhat disturbing trail of lost doll shoes on Sunday, all within a specific area:

I treated myself to my favorite of all German foods that day: schnitzel. I love the stuff! I know, it’s pork and it’s breaded and it’s fried, and it comes with fries, but MAN! I never eat it at home, so I pretty much scarf it up when I’m in Europe. I found a great restaurant upstairs overlooking one of the squares where I could watch families all dressed up after church bring their mothers, carrying roses, for a nice Mother’s Day lunch. Of course I ordered the Spargel side dish.

As I was enjoying my meal, I realized that the restaurant I was in was a place that my husband and I used to come to back in the day. I’d wondered if I could find it before I arrived in Nürnberg and here I was sitting in it! Amazing how your subconscious works for you without your realizing it!

From the window there I watched people in the square gather around a highly ornate and gilded fountain surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. They climbed up, one by one, to touch something I could see gleaming in the sunshine and most times get their pictures taken doing so. I couldn’t see what they were touching, though, so after lunch I went down for a closer look.

The fountain is called Schöner Brunnen which means “beautiful fountain.” And so it is. The fountain dates from the late 1300’s, and the ornate gates and fencing were made in 1587 by a locksmith. Holes have been bored in the iron bars of the fence so that, when it was assembled, all the pieces interlock. It’s quite a piece of engineering. The present ornate top, or crown, was added in 1823 and was also designed by a locksmith.

The thing that people were climbing up to was a brass ring that is incorporated into the ironwork. It’s part of the structure, but it can be turned freely. The legend goes that if you turn it three times you will have good luck. Well, I’m all for that, so up I climbed!

After lunch I wandered around a little more and got myself an ice cream cone. They serve gelato-like ice cream in Germany and it’s SO good! Then I returned to my room and did some more writing. Then I watched a Czech film on my computer that Jana had given me. It’s called Samotari, which means Loners. It was a quirky film, as are most Czech movies, and I enjoyed it. It was more modern than the ones I’d seen before.

That’s about it for my time in beautiful Nürnberg . The next day I hopped a train back to Bamberg where my German friends Adi and Hilde were waiting for me. Stay tuned for my tour of Bamberg!

Europe 2009 - Thursday 7 May, Part II

2009-05-07T23:39:00.000-07:00

My last journal had me traipsing around under a Czech mountain in a closed-down Soviet uranium mine. I’m happy to report that I have presented with no signs of radiation poisoning since then. But my day wasn’t over yet. I was with my Czech friend Simon who is at once a genius and wild man, as well as an excellently fearless photographer.

Although I’ve already recounted the uranium mine adventure, I have to insert a picture here that I took of an animal skull we found on the walk to it. Simon insisted that it be called “The Future in the Post-Nuclear Age.”

On the drive back to Liberec from the mine we stopped at a wide spot in the road to have a coffee. It was the village pub. I don’t recall the name of the village, but it was typical of the rural places in this part of the globe. We arrived about two or three in the afternoon and the place was nearly deserted, except for the expected core group of drinkers hanging out in the bar area. Of course there was dead silence as we walked in with suspicious stares as we took our seats at a table across the room.

The barmaid came to take our order and we visited the restroom in turns. Fearless Mountain Dog Fani was asleep on the seat beside Simon. The drinkers had started back up their conversation, ignoring us but at the same time acutely aware of us. It’s a situation I’ve been in many times and it’s a little uncomfortable, especially for a female traveling alone. Nothing would ever happen to me, of course, but the outsider feeling is there.

However, this time I had Simon who knew just what to do. This is a common and expected action for the visitor and breaks the ice anywhere in Europe. After we got our coffees and rested a while, Simon got up and went over to the table where the drinkers were discussing the same thing, I’m sure, that every other drinking group at every other rural pub in Europe discusses: wives, economy, job, kids, work, what have you. He then asked to borrow a cigarette. Once they produced several for him to choose from, he offered them one of his. After they all lit up, the tension in the air dispersed and he came back to the table having fulfilled his part of the bargain. I think I’ll have to start carrying American cigarettes with me for these situations – I don’t smoke, but you can see how useful it would be.

While Simon was over at the regulars’ table, I shot some still lifes to pass the time:

We had one more stop to make before our outing was over. I mentioned in my last journal that Simon’s father was truly a dissident during Soviet occupation and Simon has inherited many of those traits himself. His father, Jan, is a published photographer as well. Simon’s brother, also named Jan, I believe, is a photographer, too. So it’s all in the family.

We pulled up to a huge, old, looming block house that had at least three stories. On the corner was a round tower. Wonderfully old world. We made our way into the house and climbed the stairs to the second level. Mr. Pikous, now 80 years old, was lounging in a worn overstuffed chair in the corner of a room that I would expect an 80-year-old former dissident to inhabit. The afternoon sun shone through the tall windows and the open door on the opposite side of the room led to a round patio on top of the tower. The carpet was a threadbare Persian number and the furniture was heavy and dark. One wall was lined with collected antique bottles, one wall was overgrown with houseplants, and very old paintings, photos, and other decorations covered the wall space between the windows.

Mr. Pikous rose to greet me, buckling his belt as he did so. I think we interrupted his afternoon nap. Nonetheless, there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he gave me a very strong handshake. Even though we could have communicated in German, he was very hard of hearing, so Simon took it upon himself to yell translations to him as I spoke. It was quite a scene!

When I requested my picture to be taken with him, here is the result that Simon shot with my camera – I guess some things are the same the world over. Namely, dirty old men!

He was truly charming, though, and we had a wonderful visit. The highlight of my experience with this old gentlemen was that he allowed me to see the proof sheets of his next book that was due to be published that very month! He brought out a box with paste-ups of his photos that he was dropping off at the printers the next day. He is old-school, using film photography and making collages from film and slide sandwiching. This book was to be his first color one. I was salivating over the images and hoped he’d give me one, signed of course, but it didn’t happen – yet! Here’s a place on line that you can buy the book, though the site is in Czech. Might give you an idea of what kind of photos Mr. P does, though: http://www.gorila.sk/product/207165.

After we said our goodbyes we were on our way from the house to the car when I looked up and saw Mr. P. at the top of the tower waving at us. It was one of those “best photos I never took” moments; I didn’t have my camera ready and missed the shot! I’ll always remember it, though.

I also met Simon’s mother coming up the walk as we left. She seemed distracted from her shopping trip but very pleasant, with a handshake even firmer than Mr. P’s!

Later that evening all my Czech photographer friends met up at the bar I wrote about earlier called The Pub (so inventive!) for a farewell party for me. Actually, it was the night of a huge hockey game between the Czech Republic and Sweden, so I suspect that the reason for my party was more for the hockey than anything. I’m sorry to report that the Czechs got creamed in that game.

In any case, my buddies showed up and I got lots of going-away presents, such as a White Tigers shirt (local hockey team), a Liberec souvenir for my tiny souvenir for the windowsill collection, and a lot of free drinks. I met a huge man with a shaved head, friend of Libor, who told me he’d seen me in a slideshow from their visit in Florida and that I looked much better in person. Then he told Libor he had to throw his camera away because it took bad pictures. Thanks – I think!

It’s always sad to leave my friends, but I had to say goodbye fairly early. I was exhausted and the smoke of the bar was getting to me. Everyone had work the next day and I had an early train, so we all departed soon after it was apparent that the Czech hockey team wasn’t going to perform any miracles.

The next morning I was picked up by Mila and her husband Michael bright and early and taken to the train station. Mila helped me buy a train ticket that was incredibly cheap and they put me on a train bound for Nuremburg, Germany.

So stay tuned for THAT story!

Europe 2009 - Thursday 7 May

2009-05-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, May 7, my Czech friend Simon picked me up at Jana’s apartment for our day out. It’s always an exciting, physical adventure with him and I was looking forward to it. Simon is an avid outdoorsman, as well as an excellent photographer. He owns his own studio in Liberec and has been published in many books. He and his wife visited me here in Florida in 2007 when we had the big photo exhibit.

We drove about 45 minutes or so and I began to recognize the countryside that Jirka drove me through at the end of our day the week before. You know, where the old uranium mines were. That he said we couldn’t visit.

We parked and began our hike to a place called Děvín (“dyeh-veen”), a castle ruin high atop a mountain. Here we go with the hiking again! I’m sure it wasn’t all that strenuous for him, but I had a good workout.

Simon and I were accompanied by the courageous and sturdy mountain dog Fani:

She has the disturbing ability to run around the other side of the mountain up which you happen to be toiling and smilingly meet you at the top, having been there for at least 20 minutes.

The forest was green and beautiful on this overcast, chilly day, with deep holes filled with crispy leaves that I found myself knee-deep in at times after sliding into them. There were also sandstone outcroppings where previous hikers had found creative outlets:

Along the way Simon pointed out letters carved in some of the tree trunks. It was in Russian. He explained that, during the Soviet occupation, Děvín was a station for some of the Russian soldiers. He said that the young men had to stay on the mountain for three-month tours and not come down. I guess they probably did more than carve on trees, but that’s the only evidence I saw! He also pointed out the initials K.C.C.P. which is the abbreviation in Russian of the Czecho-Slovak Socialist Republic, as it was known in those days.

The castle lies near a village called Hamr na Jezeře, which means Hamr on the Lake, and was founded early in the 1200’s. It changed hands into different royal and noble families until in 1645 the Swedish destroyed it during the Thirty Year’s War. Swedish? Those wacky Catholics and Protestants! Anyway, it’s been a ruin ever since. About all that’s left now is the basement and some walls. In the basement is a tunnel from which iron ore was mined at one time.

We climbed to the summit and poked about the ruins. I was surprised how large the castle had been. Just when I thought I’d climbed over the last wall, I’d see another one. And there was a huge, deep water cistern right on top. The Czechs, in all their wisdom, had secured a heavy grate over it so no one would fall in. It was really weird walking across it, though, since it was so big. You could look down in there and see the tunnels where the rain had been channeled for the castle’s use.

And here’s the view of Hamr Lake from the castle:

Once we hiked back down to the car, we set off once again to another place. As we cruised around the huge lake I saw new-looking hotels and pensions as well as campgrounds around there. Simon told me that the lake was a tourist destination before the Soviet occupation, then it was closed off and used in the mining operations. It’s only now returning slowly to its tourist functions. It was very nice to see.

Now, I don’t know if Simon is psychic, or if we are on the same wavelength, or Jirka said something to him, but along the way, he told me that we were going to find the old uranium mines! Remember that we were NOT supposed to be messing around in that area, but Simon describes himself as a dissident, so all bets are off. He is a rascal and gets it from his father, who was truly a dissident during the Soviet regime. I was to meet that sly old codger later in the day! But for now, Simon put his photographer’s press pass in the window for our cover story, and we drove into the hills.

The mines are in a well-known mountain called Ralsko. It’s a favorite of hikers and mountain bikers, so there are roads and trails all around. Of course, the area we were headed for had signs warning us off, but you know I don’t understand much Czech!

Simon admitted that he didn’t know exactly where the mines were and that we were “looking for them.” Of the first couple of places we found, one was a dead end and the other was some kind of electric plant or something – still in operation, so we knew that wasn’t it. Also, we found The End:

When Simon actually did find our destination, he exclaimed in delight, but to me it just looked like we stopped by the side of the road. But he led me from that road to a dirt road just through a narrow, wooded area that ran parallel to the paved one. I had begun to see concrete manholes along the road:

Simon said they were part of the mine system. The mine had been the type in which a solvent was forced into the mountain via pipelines and then extracted via other pipelines. The extraction contained uranium. Then the uranium was removed from the solvent and it was reused to carry on the operation. This type of mining is called, for those nerds in the audience, in situ leaching (ISL) or solution mining. These manholes gave access to the pipeline running under the ground next to the road. In addition, there had been an electric plant next to the mine that used the uranium to generate electricity. Consequently, high-voltage power lines ran along the dirt road as well. Of course, none of this is being used anymore. I hoped.

We came to a few crumbling buildings and Simon pointed out several holes in the ground. I poked my head through and saw the heads of two of the pipelines at the point where they entered and exited the mountain:

There were numerous access points to the tunnel under our feet and I really had to watch my step around there:

We continued walking the length of that dirt road and finally came to a huge complex with very large buildings, all in a state of disrepair and crumble. The three-story buildings had windows devoid of glass and weeds growing up in the doorways. We bypassed these for now and crunched through the decaying road and about a million pieces of broken ceramic insulators to the back of the complex. There I saw what was the entrance to a mine tunnel. Apparently there had been some attempt to mine ore from the mountain and this was the entrance:

Now, to be honest, I was quite content to photograph the outside of the tunnel and be on my way, but Simon wouldn’t hear of it. He bounded right up to the door and motioned me inside. I did protest (I DID!) but my curiosity got the better of me. It was darker than any dark I’d ever seen; a darkness only caves can provide. Since we had no operational flashlight – I had one in my camera bag but the batteries were failing – I used the focusing light on my camera to see where to walk. It is only because I accidentally shot a few photos while using the focusing light this way that I have any photos of the place. In fact, I didn’t see any of the things in the photos while I was inside the tunnel because it was so dark.

Here is what it looked like to me:

When I saw those chains hanging down, I thought of meathooks for some reason and then Freddy from Elm Street came to mind. Yeah, I got really creeped out. I was actually doing ok until we got to the iron door about 30 paces in:

Simon, of course, walked right through it and I didn’t think much of it until the fearless Fani dog wouldn’t cross the threshold. THAT’s when I got really scared! Swallowing my fear, I followed Simon past the door for further exploration. I was quite relieved when he found the end of the tunnel a few yards further. There was a cross tunnel, but it was very short, and I was very, very glad to turn around and get out of there. I’d seen too many Lassie shows to stay in there a moment longer!

We then explored the empty buildings we’d passed earlier. They comprised the electric plant. We climbed in over the mound of earth that had been piled up there to keep us out and proceeded to photograph the rusted machinery left there. I got some film photos, but not any digitals that I can include here except more broken ceramic insulators than I can tell you about strewn all over the floor:

And outside we found a sign identifying a neighboring pit mine:

The name of the mine was Hamr II, after the lake. The crossed hammer symbol means the mine is closed. It had been 6 ½ meters in diameter, 305 1/2 meters deep, opened in 1980 and closed in 2003. It was filled in with fly ash (a byproduct of coal burning) and basalt, and the security zone (whatever that is) is 24 and a quarter meters. None of this may mean anything to any of you, but I find it fascinating for some reason.

Once we exhausted our inner Indiana Jones, we walked back to the car and flopped inside. Apparently no spy satellites had spotted Simon’s car and we made a clean getaway. What an adventure!

Stay tuned for a couple more memorable events of this day. Hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season!

Europe 2009 - General Reminiscences

2009-05-04T23:59:00.000-07:00

You know, in writing all these adventures I sometimes skip over some of the more heartwarming and personal experiences I have while traveling. I though I would share a few scenarios with you in this journal.

For instance, I neglected to mention that my former English-teaching colleague Stewart (New Zealand) came all the way from Prague where he now lives because I was in town. And he and I were invited to another former colleague’s house for Sunday dinner. Her name is Iva (Czech), and she had gotten married and had a baby since I’d seen her. I was to meet Stewart at a bus stop where Iva’s husband would meet us and usher us to their house in an outlying village. My surprise treat was that John (Brit), yet another former colleague, was also waiting at the bus stop when I got there.

Iva served a wonderful homemade meal in their tiny flat – what Americans would call a condo because it’s an apartment that they purchased.

Stewart, me and the baby:

Note the COMPLETE disinterest on the part of the baby!

It was a gorgeously sunny day, a bit chilly, and Iva walked us to the train station later because it was Sunday and the buses weren’t running. Little did we suspect that the trains weren’t running either! John to the rescue! He came to save us in his car, which was great for me because then I got to spend the afternoon with him, catching up on all the latest among the people we both knew.

Before you react to the shirt, you must know that John is the lead singer in a cover band called “Swallow This” and one of the songs they do is “Sex Bomb”. John posed for this shot and will probably kill me for including it here. However, if you'd like an autograph or his voice on your answering machine, I'm sure it could be arranged!

I also didn’t write about accompanying Renata to the Babylon Center, a luxury hotel in Liberec, to feed the livestock there. The hotel has a very large, two-room terrarium and Renata and her husband have the contract to tend to them. In one of the rooms they keep snakes and in the adjoining room they keep rabbits and an iguana. New to the bunch were two fox squirrels. Heck, I didn’t even know there was such an animal!

I didn’t mention that, after feeding the animals, Renata and I walked through town and met three of the other photography club members at a wonderful Italian restaurant called “Made in Italy” where we had delicious pizza. After that and a nap, I met other members of the club at a Chinese restaurant for a club meeting. It was rather uneventful except that afterward on the walk home, Jana said, “Beatles” and Roman took a picture of all the women in the crosswalk, or ‘zebra’ as John would say.

I didn’t write about all the times Jana and I watched hockey or CSI:Miami in Czech on TV or relaxed and had great conversations at her place with a glass of wine in hand. I didn’t relate all the Czech movies I managed to watch, raiding Jana’s stash whenever I had a spare hour or so. Many of them I recorded for myself since I can’t seem to find them at home: The Cremator (really creepy), Cutting It Short, The Firemen’s Ball, to name a few.

Then there was lunch and a drizzly, cold afternoon at Pepa and Marie’s house leaning against the ceramic stove for warmth while being regaled with stories of their summer camping trip to England – they are both over 60 and drove their old 1962 Skoda all the way there and back. Their daughter-in-law stopped by for a couple of hours so I could see how much the grandchildren had grown – one of them had been born during my visit last year. Their daughter arrived later and gave me all the details of her trip to Rome that year. Their son, just graduating from high school, brought out his senior presentation to show me: an experiment in aerodynamics he’d done with balsa-wood planes of different wing shapes. He’d been chosen out of the whole class as one of twelve to present it to the entire school assembly.

Then there were many hours at the home of my German friends, frantically writing down the recipes Hilde was making, asking questions and honing the fine points of her years of experience so I can represent them properly in my next recipe/journal book. Toasting with schnapps after consuming said recipes or being escorted out to sample some local wine. There were many more hours just sitting on their terrace, overlooking the tiny village where I feel so at home, watching the sky change and swatting flies with Adi.

I’m not sure what exactly motivated me to write about these moments today; maybe I’m just missing all my friends. But thanks for sharing them with me.

Hope you’re having a wonderful fall day!

Europe 2009 - Monday 4 May

2009-05-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

After my lovely weekend in Moravia with Libor and Edita, I arrived back at Jana’s flat fairly exhausted. I got a good night’s sleep but was still a little groggy the next day when the next family came to pick me up for another outing! It was Renata, her husband Milan who is the falconer at Sychrov Castle nearby (if you’ve read my previous journals, you’ll know about them already), plus their two beautiful daughters, Agnes and Elizabeth. They’d kept the girls out of school for this outing. It was then I realized that I was part of family outings this whole trip! Renata came to the door and we both walked to the car where Milan and the girls were waiting. When I got into the car, one of the girls said, “Dobry den,” which is a rather formal Czech greeting. At this, Milan said to her, “No, say ‘ciao’ because you are greeting an old friend.” If there is anything more heartwarming, I don’t know what it would be.

We drove in their new-to-them Mitsubishi SUV to Sychrov first because Milan had to tend to the birds of prey there. I always enjoy visiting the aviary and seeing some of the birds I’ve met before. However, this time I was saddened to learn that my favorite denizen, Ivan, a raven that has appeared in movies (The Brothers Grimm, for example), had met with a dire fate during the year before and had been eaten by a fox. To replace him, as if we ever could, there were about five young ravens that Milan had to feed.

Now, if you’re squeamish, please don’t read the next paragraph – and don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Birds of prey, of course, eat, well, prey. These guys, being caged and tethered, can’t go out and get their own field mice, so Milan feeds them dead baby chicks. I asked Renata where he gets them and she told me that hatcheries freeze day-old male chicks for just such purposes and Milan has to drive to Moravia several times a year to pick some up. The things I learn in my travels!

Ok, squeamish people can start reading again here. I also got to see my old friends the owls. The cross-eyed snowy owl, and the great horned owl that I’ve held on my arm. It’s surprising how light he is!

And Ben, the American Golden Eagle, Milan’s favorite and one of whose breast feathers I have as a souvenir from Milan:

After the birds were all fed, we piled back into the car and headed to a tiny village called Železný Brod, pronounced “zhe-lez-nee brode”. It dates from the 11th century. The name means “iron settlement” because there were smelting works there early on. It’s famous also for glassmaking, especially jewelry, beads, and figurines as opposed to drinking glasses and vessels like the glassmakers they took me to last year. Now it’s mostly a tourist site, but there are working glass shops as you will see. Check out their web site at http://www.zeleznybrod.cz/aktualne/english/.

We trekked up hill and down lane to see 11th-century half-timber houses, following a walking-tour map that Renata had brought. I could feel the high spirits of the family on their day out, and it was very infectious. In addition, the place was rife with photos to be shot, so I shot them!

The whole time we were sightseeing, Renata was on her cell phone every few minutes talking to the glassmakers shop that would be our next destination. We apparently got lost a couple of times, but of course you couldn’t prove it by me. The overcast weather had turned into a light drizzling rain and it was getting a little colder as we tromped through what seemed like a maze of back alleys. Presently we entered a backyard garden gate and were heartily welcomed into someone’s back porch. I was a little perplexed until we were led through the porch into a hallway and then down a few concrete steps into the glassmaker’s shop! I didn’t know we’d been ushered into the back of the house above the shop. Welcome to Europe!

The shop was a new, modern, smallish rectangular room, from the tile floor to the drop ceiling. Across the front were glass windows. One wall was lined with small cards that displayed every type of bead they made there; the other side was taken up with a long counter with hundreds of plastic bins behind it, kind of like they sell at Home Depot for storing nails and screws in a workshop. Each little bin held one kind of bead.

Against the back wall was a glassed-in worktable where a beautiful young Czech woman, perfectly made up, was making glass beads at a lampwork setup. Lampwork, by the way, is so named because when it was invented, beadmakers used the flame of an oil lamp to heat the glass, increasing the heat of the flame by blowing on it and holding the glass in the flame. Now, however, the technology is a much hotter gas flame jetting out very quickly and drawn horizontally by a large vacuum tube.

The metalworker works with a glob of molten glass on a thin metal rod held into the flame. She turns the rod and adds other colors of glass in layers from other rods to make the bead. In addition, she rolls the slightly cooled glass bead in other materials such as tiny glass beads to adhere them to the large bead. There are also tools such as small iron cups on a sturdy base where she rolls the soft glass into a perfect sphere, or other shapes. Once the bead cools, the thin rod is removed, leaving the hole in it for stringing. I watched for a long time.

I shopped for a bit, too, and bought myself a pair of earrings with green beads and a copper ribbon running through them. I also got a larger bead for my friend who makes jewelry back home so she can play with it in her metal shop. My find of the day, however, was when I noticed the tiny figurines they make there in all kinds of animal shapes. My best friend collects camels and I’m always on the lookout for an unusual one. I didn’t see one, but, once I asked if they had them, the manager, who was the fastest-talking person I’ve ever met except for that time I naively let the Kirby vacuum guy in the door, started pulling plastic bins out from the wall behind her. Each was filled with a different kind of animal figurine. I not only found the cutest camel on earth (looks like a poodle, really), but I also found a goofy frog for a friend who collects them, and a fabulous little hedgehog for myself!

The girls decided to make their own earrings, so while they all piled their coats and purses onto Milan, who had found a chair with the dogs dozing at his feet, I stepped outside to shoot a few photos. When I came back in, I caught this picture of Elizabeth trying out her bead choice and also her sexy look:

At long last the jewelry was finished and we were ready to continue our jaunt. What an experience! By the way, the name of the glassmaker is Kortan Glass and you can see their web site at www.kortanglass.com. They have English pages and extensive pictures of the beads and glasswork they make there.

We made our way through more narrow streets in the gray day, checking out the architecture and making lots of pictures. We came to the town museum, but, its being Sunday, it was closed. The museum was situated by a fast-running brook, and who do you think we saw by the bridge? My old friend Vodnik again! He’s just everywhere!

Our walk eventually led us to the town center, which was much more modern and busy than the area we’d just toured. We stopped at a coffeeshop for refreshments. Milan was muttering under his breath about the lack of selection and staleness of some of the pastries. The girls had a big laugh when he told them they’d finally experienced Communism!

After our repast we made our way back to the car and piled in to drive home. There was a cookout at Jirka’s that evening and we had to get back in time. The drive was so beautiful, as it always is there, and Milan took a different route home so I could see more of the countryside.

Once back at Jana’s, I got ready and rode with her to Jirka’s where most of the photo club, the core group at least, were there. He had built a small campfire in the backyard pit for warmth – it was COLD by this time – and then cooked delicious chicken and steaks on a small iron grill next to the fire. We all had a good time huddled around that fire, though it was a little abbreviated being a school night and so chilly. Finally it was time to head back to Jana’s to get a good night’s sleep.

Stay tuned for adventures in the bowels of a Soviet uranium mine!

Europe 2009 - Sunday 3 May

2009-05-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

On the third and final day of my weekend in Moravia, May 3, my tour guides took me to a tourist destination town called Telč („Telch“). I’d been to Telč before, but only to change buses in 2007. Need I mention that the bus station did not do justice to the town at all! Check out Telč’s web site: www.telc-etc.cz/telc/?lang=EN.

Edita’s entire family had decided to go along for the outing, so we set out in two vehicles on that beautiful, sunny morning: Libor, Edita, their two children, Edita’s parents, her brother Robert, and Robert‘s son.

We convoyed to Telč in two cars, about an hour, and parked in a lot that was quite empty. However, it was filling up fast as the heat of the day set in.

We crossed a footbridge into the old, historical town area, and had to stop, of course, so the grandparents could buy the grandchildren some ice cream. I was snapping photos while waiting for that:

After everyone had the treat he or she desired, we made our way into the main town center area.

Telč has existed in one form or another since 1099; at least a legend has it being founded then. Historical documents mention it starting from the 1300’s, though, so let’s go with that. The tourist area is a long, rectangular area with large ponds on each of the long sides. The buildings surround the large, oblong marketplace, and a fountain is located on one end. Buildings line the square and each one is a unique style; all of them are united by a sidewalk with an arched cover.

There is a castle at one end, an apothecary shop, blacksmith, and many other historical places to tour. In addition, there are restaurants and trinket shops, as well as kiosks selling more touristy items along the sidewalk under the arches.

I paused to examine some jewelry at one of the sidewalk vendors; it turned out that Edita, who used to sell jewelry on the sidewalk here (what DIDN’T she do?), was friends with the vendors. They were a married couple and it had been years since they’d seen Edita. While Edita gossipped with them, I chose some small presents for friends back home and myself. In fact, I’m wearing the silver earrings as I write this. Of course, I got the friend discount!

In this picture you can just see the friends‘ kiosk under the archway, pretty much behind the man walking across the cobblestones:

The gables on that building display a very common decorating technique for the facades in Telč: sgraffito.

In sgraffitto, layers of different-colored plaster are applied, then the top layer is scratched so that the underlying color can be seen.

I’d encountered sgraffitto in nearby Slavonice in 2007. I wondered at the time why an Italian Renaissance technique had been so prevalent. In doing research for this journal, I found out that Baron Zachariá of Hradec, who lived in Telč in the 1500’s, prime Renaissance time, had the castle and much of the town rebuilt. Turns out that an architect from Slavonice was hired for the reconstruction where the popular decoration of the time was sgraffito. Also, Zachariá toured Italy often and invited artists from there to come to Telč to work. In addition, the completion of the general appearance of the architecture was assigned to Baldassare Maggi of Arogno, Italy. Mystery solved.

We poked around all the stalls and the kids mauled through all the toy shops. Libor’s son insisted on buying a straw Asian hat like they wear in the rice fields then promptly handed it to Libor because he didn’t want to wear it that day. It ended up on Libor’s head:

Edita took the kids to climb the castle tower, but since I was still fighting a cold, I opted out of that and any other strenuous activity. Plus it was damned hot by then! Libor and I snuck away for a coffee and dessert nearby, and I managed a few pictures, of course.

More sgraffito:

This car is actually backing out of a garage located under the archways. The yellow hotel in the background is where Libor and I had our coffee. He and Edita told me they stayed there on their honeymoon and it’s quite possible their son was conceived there. At that point I asked them how to say “TMI” in Czech!

The wrap-up to the day was having an early dinner at a restaurant named Švejk. The reason this was so monumental to me was that Švejk was a name I’d heard before. Pronounced “shvayk”, it’s the name of a beloved character in Czech culture. He was the brainchild of Jaroslav Hašek (“Yar-o-slav Hashek”) who introduced Švejk in his satirical novel The Good Soldier Švejk. Švejk was a soldier in WWI and is apparently a good-natured, somewhat slow guy bumbling around trying to do the right thing. The book has been made into movies and cartoons. He even has his own web site: www.svejkcentral.com. Most people seem to find him endearing, but I know that at least one of my Czech friends thinks he’s kinda stupid. One of these days I’ll read the translation and see for myself.

Other than being named after the good soldier and having a quote or two on the walls from him, the restaurant was not really a theme restaurant like you’d expect in America. The décor and food were traditional Czech and I can testify to the goodness of the garlic soup there! We rested our tired feet and filled our empty stomachs there. After we had all rested and nearly fallen asleep, we assembled back at the cars for our trip home.

Once we made that journey, Libor and family plus me piled back into his LandCruiser for the trip back to Liberec. Aside from being nearly blinded by the setting sun as we drove into the west, the ride was unremarkable – just more yellow fields!

Stay tuned for a trip to a traditional glassmaker’s shop and another cookout on a freezing cold evening!

Europe 2009 - Saturday 2 May, Part II

2009-05-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

On 2 May I found myself having lunch at the Starobrno Brewery restaurant with my hosts and tour guides, Libor and Edita in Brno, Czech Republic. Libor and I had just toured the historic city center and Špilberk Castle. Edita met us for lunch then the three of us set off for the small town of Třebíč, an unpronounceable word for those who don’t speak Czech natively, but sounds to my uninitiated ears something like, “Chebich”.

Třebíč, which dates from before the 1100’s, is the site of one of the few surviving historical Jewish neighborhoods in Europe. It was the Jewish quarter that we toured that day. It was a peaceful, cobblestoned area of 123 very small old houses, each a different style and design, nestled next to the Jihlava River. The builders were clever in creative use of very small spaces, tacking on balconies and using buttresses over passageways to support the structures. Somehow the houses all fit together to create a wonderfully charming atmosphere.

The afternoon light was golden, which made for great photographs:

Edita next to a sculpture scratched into a wall:

Stray Jewish Cat:

Dog Tug:

Two Windows:

Exposed Brick:

and

The first historical records of a Jewish group living in this area was in 1338. To make a living, they were allowed only to engage only in tannery, the making of spirits, glovemaking, pawn-shopping, and real estate. Even then they were heavily taxed, much more so than the Christian population. After generations of ups and downs, including fires, floods and persecution, the Jews acquired full rights in 1848 and began to move into the other areas of Třebíč and points beyond.

At that point Christians began to move into the neighborhood, and the ghetto became a working quarter. Unfortunately, in WWII the Nazis took 281 Jews from the quarter and sent them to concentrations camps. Only 10 of these survived the war; the once active quarter was now only a silent reminder of the history of the once-thriving Jewish population. Fortunately this ghetto has been added to the UNESCO list of preserved historic places and therefore I could experience and photograph it for myself. There is a very good web site with virtual tours of the sites at http://www.trebic.cz/unesco/default.asp?lang_id=2.

We visited the two synagogues, the first of which, known as the “Old” synagogue, is now used as a Hussite church. I shot my “Peaceful Coexistence” photo there:

The attendant of this church was an old man who talked so much it was hard to experience the space. He talked to me endlessly in Czech (it could have been heavily accented English, but I couldn’t understand him!). He insisted I get a picture of him holding the “before” picture of the inside, which was a totally unreadable Xerox copy of a photo:

I also got a picture of him at the antique organ that they still use for services:

The second place of worship in the ghetto, known as the “Rear” Synagogue, is now an exhibit hall, and it was fully renovated in the 1990’s. There is a gift shop and information center at the front entrance and a preserved worship hall (now used for concerts and the like) behind that. I shot these photos there:

Třebíč Menorah:

Above the worship hall is an exhibit space, formerly the women’s gallery, containing a permanent exhibit of artifacts from Jewish life throughout the ages. In addition, there is a scale model of the quarter enclosed in glass with small signs corresponding to buttons you can push for information on the item. This type of display, which I’ve seen in several other places, presents the information in several different languages. Pretty clever!

After touring the patchwork architecture, we drove up and over the hillside to the Jewish cemetery, the largest existing one in Europe: about 12,000 square yards and 3,000 tombstones surrounded by a massive stone wall. There is a newer part, with shiny monuments and well-kept flowers:

But I was more fascinated by the old part, with headstones dating from the early 1600’s surrounded by ground-cover ivy and wildflowers:

After this wonderful walking tour, we stopped for ice cream and espresso at a small café at the entrance to the Jewish quarter. There I was served my espresso in beautiful, stylish china by Julius Meinl of Austria. Not that I knew anything about Meinl until I saw his name on the dishes and looked it up – I only knew I loved the design. Check out http://www.meinl.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MC&Product_Code=78188 if you’re interested.

Mostly I love the fact that you can spend an afternoon walking peacefully around a truly old European neighborhood rich in history and top it off sipping espresso in an ultra-modern demitasse!

Třebíč also has a historic town tower that was established in the early 1300’s, as well as the Basilica of St. Prokopius, which has been described as a jewel of European medieval architecture. Though we didn’t get to tour these things, they are on my list of things to do the next time I’m in the neighborhood!

It was getting late, so we made our way back to the car and drove back to Edita’s parents’ house in Okříšky. True to European form, Libor had told them I’d lost all my pictures of the cookout on Friday night, so they had another one for me this night! In addition to Edita’s parents, the party consisted of her and Libor’s kids, her brother Robert, his 8-year-old son Matyus (who was extremely shy and scared of the American but who warmed to me later though he couldn’t understand anything I said to him), her other brother Marcel, and Marcel’s wife Vera.

Robert and Libor try to get me to drink Slivovice:

Robert, Libor, Edita, and son:

Robert at the grill:

Marcel told us something very interesting to me. You may remember, several journals ago, that I discovered my new favorite Czech film, Closely Watched Trains. The actor who played the lead in that film, Václav Neckár, was actually a singer by trade, and has had a fairly successful music career since the film was made in 1966. Turns out he lives nearby and made an appearance at the May Day festival that was held the night before in that very village!

Well, it was really, really cold, I had a cold, and I was wiped out after my adventures in Moravia. So I bid the family good night and retreated to the warm, comfy bed upstairs in the other half of the duplex. I fell asleep as the bright moonlight streamed through the window and I could hear the muffled sounds of the family outside, talking, laughing and singing into the night.

Stay tuned for a family outing to Telc!

Europe 2009 - Saturday 2 May

2009-05-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, 2 May, I awoke in Olomouc at Hotel Senimo after a wonderfully full day of museums, sightseeing and photography. I’d slept well but wasn’t feeling up to par because I now had a giant cold. But, I’d pretty much rather be sick in Europe than well anywhere else!

So, my friend Libor knocked on my door and said he’d be downstairs at breakfast, so I finished up dressing and packing and met him there for a bite. After that we loaded his car and set off back to Brno where we’d left his wife Edita to attend a seminar the day before. The idea was that we would sightsee there then meet her for lunch before heading back to Edita’s parent’s house.

The day was sunny and brilliant, and I photographed more yellow rapeseed fields and lilacs on the way. We arrived about an hour later and parked once again in the garage of the shopping mall adjacent to the railway station.

Fortunately all the Neo-Nazis had dispersed since the demonstration the day before. Libor told me that the radio reported no violence or problems there for the duration. Must be something about May Day that makes them antsy for protests.

Now, I had had many friends tell me that there wasn’t much to see in Brno so I wasn’t expecting very much. Boy, was I surprised! Libor parked the big rig (LandCruiser) in the mall parking garage again and we wended our way through the mall and train station til we came out on the other side of the tracks, so to speak, near the heart of the historical district of Brno.

Brno is situated where two rivers meet, so it has long been a center of trade. It’s also the capital of the Moravian territory, as well as a business and political center. The area has been settled since the Fifth Century and has been designated as Brno (more or less) since the 1200’s. You can find a few more details about the city on its web site at http://brno.cz/index.php?lan=en.

Brno is the second largest city in the country, after Prague, with half a million people. They have a new exhibition center that hosts trade fairs and concerts. Masaryk University, the second largest public university in the Republic, is located in Brno. In addition, they have a prominent music academy and a famous motor racing circuit.

Our destination that day, however, was the historic city center. Once we crossed the tracks (underground), everything was uphill. The immediate area was clean and more or less recently paved, mostly with light tan paving stones. The buildings were that color, too, which reminded me of Bath in England and the stone they have there. The neighborhood was a high-rent district with expensive shops and restaurants.

It was early morning, before any of the shops were open. It’s my favorite time of the day, especially in a European city. Exotic-looking little trucks were making their deliveries or collecting trash. Café owners were sweeping their patio areas and setting up umbrellas; the smell of fresh coffee and pastries was in the air. It was cool and quiet and I was very content.

Libor led me to the market square, located in a sloping parking lot and dominated by a huge fountain. I remember the predominance of strawberries at the stalls, with customers discussing purchases with stall attendants. It just doesn’t get any better than this!

Needless to say, I was snapping pictures this whole time. Libor, himself a photographer, asked me if I was photographing in RAW format (the best way to shoot because this format includes the most digital information for a picture). Since I had just recently acquired my digital camera, I didn’t really know. So, I paused to peruse the camera’s menu and discovered I was shooting in JPEG mode. In an attempt to change the format of my digital files, I found a menu item that said FORMAT, so I chose that.

Well, turns out that it didn’t change the format of my photos, it FORMATTED my memory card, which means that anything that was stored in the camera at that point was GONE. Erased, kaput, removed, wiped out. Essentially, I had lost all the color photos I’d shot since we set out on Witches’ Night. All my shots of Olomouc were gone, including the beautiful architecture, the cathedral, the art museums, all of it. So for any of you who were wondering why my last post contained no photographs, it’s because I don’t have any!

I remained suicidal for the next hour or so, and Libor made sure I had no sharp objects or firearms within reach. I talked myself down off the ledge, so to speak, by being thankful that I’d downloaded all the photos from the camera just before setting out on this trip, so at least I’d only lost a couple of days. And, before it was all over with, Libor gave me a CD with all his photos from our excursion, so I have those. All in all, not as bad as it could have been. Plus I still had my black-and-white film shots.

As traumatic as this experience was, I can tell you I will never, ever make that mistake again! There is always a lesson in everything. So, here are a couple of the color photos I shot in Brno that still exist (need I tell you they were shot in RAW format?):

After re-photographing the market, we continued around the area, slowly making our way uphill. We rounded a corner and discovered a photography exhibit by Dagmar Hochová, a renowned Czech photographer. The exhibit was in some kind of institution, like a hospital or orphanage. I wish I’d taken the time to write down the details, but I was still grieving over the loss of my photos. And I’ve searched high and low on the internet for details of this exhibit, all to no avail.

Hochová, born in 1926 and now living in Prague, is famous for, among other things, her series of photographs of children. This particular exhibit displayed many images she shot at a home for mentally and physically handicapped children who were being cared for by nuns. I would put the timeframe of the photos around the 1950’s, more or less. This was, I think, a charity exhibit because I believe the institution where it was held did a similar service as the one in the photos.

I know Hochová because an exhibit of her photos preceded the first exhibit of my Czech photo club in Liberec. In fact, her name appeared on the poster advertising our exhibit, with top billing, of course. I attended the opening for her exhibit in Liberec in 2005, though she wasn’t able to attend it herself due to ill health.

It seemed that the photos on display that day in Brno, in mats but not frames or behind glass, were originals because I could see the (many) dust spots on them and sloppy attempts to retouch them. The quality of the prints was very, very bad, but it added to the overall effect of the subject matter, I guess. I bought the Brno exhibit catalog (reproduction values in the catalog were MUCH better than the actual prints) for my friend Jana because she loves Dagmar Hochová, not only for her work, but also because she is a woman who managed to become one of the foremost Czech photographers despite the ‘disadvantage’ of being a woman. Jana knows her photographers and even pointed Hochová’s apartment out to me in Prague last year.

After seeing the exhibit, I deemed the trip to Brno already a success. If it had ended there, I would have been happy. But, it didn’t end there! We continued up the hill to the top where we could see the city spread out below us. Our first stop was the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul on Petrov Hill, which dominates the Brno skyline.

It sits on the presumed site of the former Brno castle. A free-standing Romanesque basilica replaced it then was rebuilt as a Gothic cathedral in the 13th century. It was converted to Baroque in the 18th century and then to neo-Gothic around 1900. Here’s a couple of shots I got of it:

As the cool morning burned into a rather hot mid-day, we trudged down Petrov Hill and then back up another one to Špilberk Castle. The pronunciation of Špilberk sounds like Spielberg; in fact, when Libor and Edita spoke about it in Czech before I knew it was the local castle, I thought they were talking about Steven Spielberg for some reason! Later, Libor joked about “Steven Spielberg’s Castle.”

The castle is at the top of a hill, as I said, and the entire hill comprises the grounds of the castle. It’s a beautiful, green park with pathways, benches and sculptures for all to enjoy. In this park I saw Vodnik, in the flesh this time, complete with green skin and stringy hair.

You may recall I previously met Vodnik at Lemberk Castle with Jirka and learned he was a water spirit that sometimes takes bad people, drowns them, and keeps their souls in cups under the water. This incarnation of Vodnik was not a statue, but a man in costume stalking through the park, apparently on his way to some festival. He was accosted by some parents of a small child who insisted she talk to him, despite the fact that even I could see this child was completely terrified!

As for the castle, it was built in the first half of the 13th Century on top of Špilberk Hill. In the 18th Century it was made into an enormous Baroque fort, which also became a highly feared prison, the casemates being particularly notorious. It hosted long, grim sentences for French revolutionaries, Italian carbonari, and Czech political prisoners. The prison was also a place of terror during WWII. Since 1961 Špilberk has been a museum used for exhibits; the former prison cells and casemates are also open for viewing.

We poked about the castle and took pictures. I didn’t go in to see the former prison cells, partly because I was getting very sick with a cold, and partly because I didn’t want to see such a depressing sight just then. Instead, we hung out in the sunshine. Here’s a picture of the view from the castle walls:

Here is Libor photographing the main part of the castle:

Around the castle was what looked like a moat, though there was no water in it. The huge trench was lined on both sides in red brick, and the part directly under the castle proper housed the casemates. Casemates, a new word for me, are small rooms built into the ramparts for storage of artillery and ammo. In this case, however, these rooms had been converted into one of the worst prisons in Europe.

Here’s what the outside of the casemates looked like:

It was getting to be lunchtime and Edita called Libor to let him know she was finished with her seminar. So we left the castle and made our way down the back side of the hill toward our meeting place. This particular path was really, really steep and very taxing to descend. It seemed that, even though it was downhill, it took more effort going down than climbing up had. In one of the neighborhoods we passed through along the way I saw someone loading a large model airplane into a very tiny car; he had to disassemble and load the wings separately from the fuselage to make it all fit.

We met Edita at Pivovar Starobrno, or the Old Brno Brewery. Starobrno (Old Brno) is the local beer and this place was a restaurant attached to the brewery itself. The beer was wonderful, of course, and especially nice to my sore throat was the garlic soup, a Czech specialty that I always enjoy.

Though there is still much to tell about this day’s adventure, I think I will break here so I can get it to you readers out there. Stay tuned for interesting Jewish historical districts and a heartwarming homecoming at Edita’s parents’ home that night!

Europe 2009 - Friday 1 May, Part II

2009-05-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

As you may remember from my last journal, on Friday, 1 May, I set out from a small village in Moravia - where my friend Edita’s parents live - heading toward the city of Brno. The temptation for English-speakers is to pronounce this, “Bruno”, but it’s more like, “Burn –o” with a really, really short vowel sound in the first syllable. While it’s true that many Czech words don’t have an overabundance of vowels in print, sometimes it’s necessary to sneak one in while speaking those words. This is one of them. Don’t tell the Czech Pronunciation Police.

I was being chauffeured by Edita’s husband, Libor, and accompanied by Edita as well. This married couple visited me in March this year to kick off the second Czech photography exhibit that I coordinated here in Florida. Edita had a seminar to attend in Brno that weekend, and Libor was to take me to another city, Olomouc, for photo purposes.

We set out on a crisp, sunny morning and drove the hour to Brno, arriving at the train station there. There was a huge, new mall adjacent to the station, so we parked in the multi-level garage next to that. We somehow got the large Toyota LandCruiser in a parking space and walked the couple of blocks to the station. Luckily, parking was free that day because May 1 is a holiday there.

As we walked, Edita, who lived in Brno for a time in her younger days, pointed out things of interest, mainly the newer infrastructure that we were seeing: the mall, the parking garage, the elevated walkway and it’s accompanying ice cream shops and convenience stores, the escalators next to the stairways. I paused to shoot some pictures of the old juxtaposed with the new from a raised vantage point next to the escalators that would take us down to the train station entrance.

From there, Edita pointed to an arched portal on the ground floor of the station that had an iron gate across it. Surrounding the gate and occupying the wide open area adjoining it were tables and tents of vendors selling everything from fresh produce to clothing. It looked like a mini-flea market and most of the vendors looked Asian or Mediterranean.

Edita told me that the gated archway used to be the main concourse to the station from this side and that it used to be dark and scary. It was known as the Mouse Hole, or Myší dírá (“mee-shee dee-rah). She said that she had to traverse it often but was afraid every time, especially at night. Once we proceeded through the newer concourse, which, to me, was grey, dreary, ill-lit and depressing with far too many people, I couldn’t imagine how bad the Mouse Hole must have been!

Our plan for that day was that Edita would catch a local tram from the station to her seminar and Libor and I would exit the opposite side of the station and continue up a steep hill to the Brno Castle and other sites that awaited us there. But it was not to be.

As we entered the station, I noticed a huge number of young men dressed in heavy boots, either black-and-white camouflage pants or black jeans, and black t-shirts with white and red lettering or designs. Since I don’t understand much Czech, I didn’t know what the shirts were saying. All I noticed was that the boys were very, very serious.

It wasn’t until Edita left us and we turned to walk up the hill that I saw yellow police tape across the street where we were headed and a couple of policemen in full riot gear standing guard. At that point Libor said to me, “Nazis.” Well, THEN I realized that all those young men were Neo-Nazis and were there for a demonstration! Apparently they were being denied access to the city center by the police.

Libor went to ask the police if we could get through since we were just there for sightseeing. Meanwhile, I was snapping pictures of the police and the young men milling about. I was struck by their appearance, not only because they seemed so grim, but also because their pants were ironed and creased, their t-shirts were new or ironed and their hair was perfect. What a well-groomed bunch!

Anyway, the police told Libor we couldn’t go through so we turned to make our way back through the crowd to the station and beyond. By this time, many more Neo-Nazis had gathered and I had a growing sense of a mob-mentality vibration. Even then, however, I didn’t feel afraid for my own safety. But I didn’t want to hang around, either.

Libor was totally disgusted by the whole thing and put out that we couldn’t go sightseeing because of these people. And, I believe, he was embarrassed that I saw this aspect of his country. He muttered and cursed under his breath all the way back to the car. But, just like he wouldn’t hold me responsible for a Klan rally, I certainly didn’t hold him responsible for Neo-Nazi protestors!

So we went to Plan B, which was to travel to the town of Olomouc (“O-lo-motes”) and sightsee there then come back and see Brno the next day. It turned out to be a very good plan indeed. Aside from the fact that Olomouc is a well-known tourist destination, Libor has a cousin Petr (“pet-r”) who works at the Archdiocese Museum there.

We drove another hour or so to Olomouc and found our hotel, the Senimo (www.hotel.senimo.cz, if you’re interested). It was a fairly new place located a few blocks outside of the main tourist district and was just across the parking lot from a grocery store. I can’t recommend this hotel highly enough! The service was great, the staff spoke English, there was a good restaurant inside the hotel, the rooms were very nice with bathrooms in them, and all for about $40, breakfast included. These prices were less than what is on their web site, though, so I think Libor found an internet special or something.

Either way, we tossed our bags in our rooms and then had lunch in the hotel restaurant, which was really nice. After that, we walked about a mile toward the town center, poking into side streets and photographing what we found along the way. Eventually we made our way to the Archdiocese Museum. On the way, Libor phoned Petr who said he would be a few minutes, so we stopped at the adjacent Cathedral of St. Vaclav (St. Wenceslas in English) located just across the courtyard from the museum.

It’s rather small, as European cathedrals go, and beautiful. Its original construction was in the first half of the 1100’s, and over the years it has been partially destroyed and rebuilt and built onto so that the styles of the current structure include, in turns, the original Romanesque, Gothic, Mannerist/Renaissance, Baroque, Neo-Classical, and Neo-Gothic. To top it all off, the whole thing has been undergoing a thorough reconstruction and renewal since the 1970’s.

Most of our time was spent in the crypt area under the cathedral because that space was being used for an art exhibit. Although you could descend another staircase to a lower level and see the crypts, we stayed to look at the art, which was a collection of painted glass pieces by a contemporary artist. They were quite nice, and I was amazed that the prices were not really that high, considering their large size and obviously time-consuming processes.

In the crypt was an older man serving as docent. He very obviously enjoyed his job, was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the place, and almost talked our ears off. Though it was mostly in Czech, he was happy to try out his English to me whilst selling me the English version of a little history book about the cathedral.

You can find a fascinating virtual tour of St. Vaclav at http://olomoucky-kraj.com/object.php?f=22&object=10&l=3 and a link to more history than I’ve provided here. I wish I could find some pictures of the art that was on display there, but I came up empty-handed in a web search.

Presently we made our way out of the church and across the courtyard to the Archdiocese Museum of Olomouc (see a tour description and pictures at http://www.outsideprague.com/olomouc/archdiocese_museum.html), a repository of art and historical artifacts of the Catholic district there. This is where Libor’s cousin Petr works as a graphic artist.

There was a sign on the door that admittance was free that day because of the May 1st holiday. Lucky us! Within a few minutes, Petr joined us on the ground floor. He is a very tall, polite young man who looked to be about 30 or so. He personally led us on a tour of the place.

The first stop was the restored Bishop’s Carriage – very impressive. It was all gilt and red velvet. I spent several minutes photographing details of it from all sides.

Next was the treasure room that reminded me of a darkroom because we had to go through some heavy black drapes to get in. The room was darkened with black, ultra-modern floor-to-ceiling glass cylinders that contained monstrances and other church treasures. It was a very unexpected design in that old building!

After that we walked down long concrete ramps to the basement level where we saw a lot of statuary plus some archeological dig sites where they’ve uncovered findings from as early as 3500 BC.

Then it was back up to the ground floor where Petr led us up a wide staircase to a picture gallery. I honestly don’t remember much about the artwork itself, but I do remember that, to protect the wood floors, we had to put on felt booties over our shoes. We shuffled our way through the exhibit and it felt very clumsy.

Finally, Petr led us to a large gallery space back on the ground floor. The exhibit at that time, called “The Rose Garden” (Růžové Zahradě), consisted of dozens of handmade prayer books. It reminded me of the “Ink and Blood” exhibit I’d previously seen in St. Pete, Florida, that traced the history of the Bible.

The prayer books were personal objects of Christian devotion and were widespread in Bohemia and Moravia between 1750 and 1850. Research shows that the books were unique to this area; no other group produced them in such numbers. It was a cultural phenomenon. I can imagine the people of those places and times painstakingly creating these books for each other for Christmas or ordering one handmade by the church cleric as a wedding present.

This exhibit was very significant because of the contribution to world book culture these items represent. The books had been collected by Jan Poš of Prague and acquired by the Olomouc museum after his death. Petr was especially proud of this exhibit because he himself had been involved with choosing which books to display and what page of each to turn to. Also, he had helped compile and lay out the large, hardcover exhibit catalog that contained photographs of all the books on display as well as a historical background. The endleaves of the catalog were a reproduction of the endleaves in one of the prayer books.

Most of the books were small, about 5”x7”, and most were about an inch or so thick. Some had hand-drawn and/or hand-painted endleaves. All of them had prayers calligraphed or scripted in Czech or some few in German; there were a few with both languages. The most stunning parts of the books, though, were the drawings. There were ornate borders around the text, large initial letters drawn on each page, and religious scenes: everything from the Nativity scene to the crucifixion was drawn freehand in multi-colored inks. A wide range of artistic capabilities was represented, from primitive line drawings to elaborately detailed presentations.

But my absolute favorite part of the exhibit was the replica of one of the books. Petr and co. had photographed each page of one of the prayer books, which, in turn, was reproduced into a full-color facsimile, cover, endleaf and all. Though I couldn’t understand a word of the writing, I SO wanted to own that little replica! I decided against buying it, though, because it would just add weight to my luggage. It was enough to photograph it.

After this wonderful exhibit, we walked a few more blocks toward the city center and had a beer at a rooftop bistro called Café 87 that Petr took us to. It was getting to be about 5pm and the sun was setting quickly. In fact, it was getting pretty cold and breezy, but we sat outside despite this. While we sat there, Petr presented me with a copy of the hardcover Rose Garden catalog! He is listed as Graphics Designer in the front, so I made him sign it there. He was very self-conscious about that.

In addition, he gave me a copy of a book on Czech and Slovak photographers that the museum had produced a few years ago. I had seen this book before at Jana’s and was thrilled to have it. But the MOST wonderful gift he gave me was that little prayer book replica! I tried to convey my gratitude, but I really don’t think he understood how much the books meant to me. I will treasure them always. I admittedly had to juggle a few things to get my luggage weight in parameters, but it was SO worth it!

The next treat of the day (there were still a few more) was seeing the Olomouc Museum of Art, which was right next door to the café. Since the Archdiocese Museum is part of the same system, Petr actually works for this museum as well. It was closing time, but, since we had this wonderful connection, Petr was allowed to give us a personal, private tour of the museum after it closed. Fantastic!

We started at the top floor, which displayed part of the permanent collection in a configuration depicting what an art appreciator’s home might look like in the early 20th century. There were small Picasso pencil drawings, furniture from the period, and assorted and sundry other items such as ceramics and fabric art.

Next floor down held an exhibit of work by Eduard Ovčáček (“ove-cha-check”), who was born in 1933 and is described as a visual poet because his work involves using letters and numbers. There were poster-sized works that used only S’s for example, or L’s or 2’s. One symbol was printed in multiple sizes and colors, superimposed upon one another in solid or outline, in straight lines and curves and angles, and in various typefaces. The overall effect is very geometric.

Some of the most interesting pieces were ones in which he’d burned the letters into the paper. Since I have some old lead type, I’m thinking of trying this myself. Some of his early work involved using just a typewriter to write letters in ornate patterns on a piece of typing paper. Tangentially, I learned that pismo means “letter” in Czech.

Petr told me he felt a strong connection to this exhibit because of his interest in graphic arts and publishing. One of the few 3D items in the exhibit was a series of folded cardboard “sandwich boards” about a foot high all lined up in rows inside a wooden frame on the floor. It reminded me of a sandbox frame. The word “Me” was printed on one side of each tent, while on the other, the word, “We” appeared. All the “Me’s” were on one side, and all the “We’s” were on the other so that the sculpture appeared different from each side.

When I saw that piece, I could SWEAR I’d seen it before, as well as some of the other pieces, though I couldn’t remember where or when. In doing some research on Ovčáček for this journal, I discovered he’d had an exhibit in Liberec in 2005 during the same time I lived there teaching English. So, it’s probable I saw it then. In fact, you can find some biographical information about him on the Liberec gallery’s web site at http://www.ogl.cz/en/exhibitions-archive.php?vid=50.

Next floor down was my personal favorite. It was an exhibit of works by Michael Rittstein, an expressionist painter. The huge gallery was probably 30’x150’ or so and lined with huge canvases painted with the most bizarre, surreal images you can imagine. In fact, I’d be scared for you if you could imagine some of these images! They were quite weird, very frenetic, and sometimes violent. The artist poured a lot of energy into these images of modern life, and they weren’t all just painted. For example, some of them employed things like chicken-wire panels over the paintings and were painted to be part of the color scheme.

One of my favorite pieces consisted of three tall lengths of fake fur with what looked like buckets of shiny dried paint poured on them. Libor pointed out to me that we’d seen one of his works in the Café 87; apparently the artist held a public painting session as part of his opening so that the general public was invited to add to the painting over the course of the event. I remembered the piece: it had sneakers painted into the image! Petr then informed us that the artist had gone back and “fixed” the painting after the opening because it had become such an ugly mess during the process!

Rittstein, born in 1949, now teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and is world-renowned. He’s had exhibits all over the world. The exhibit I saw was a retrospective, and I’m so glad I saw it. To get an idea of his imagery, search on his name in Google Images. You’ll be enthralled!

Libor and I spent about an hour being fascinated by and photographing these monstrous works of vivid color. Each one was so different from the next! There was so much going on in some of them, I’m sure I missed a lot of it. I would like to see it all again!

There was one level left for us to see at the museum that day and it was filled with an installation titled, ”Karel Teige and Book Culture.” Teige, who died in 1951, was THE major figure of Czech avant-garde between the world wars who introduced modern art to Prague. He was an architectural theoretician and creator of original surrealist collages and decals.

This exhibit presented his typographic work. The walls were painted stark white and mounted on them were books in many different languages on many different subjects, mostly scientific and academic. Each book was encased in clear acrylic and red painted lines on the walls connected them in patterns. Seeing the books up close was interesting for me, though I have to admit that the installation as a whole didn’t thrill me. Anything would have been hard put to follow the Rittstein retrospective.

We finished up in the museum about 7pm and then headed to the town square to sightsee. It was still daylight but getting dusky and turning really cold. We arrived at the square after a several-block walk, just in time to see what had been a “green” celebration of May Day being dismantled. Vendors and craftsmen were packing up and taking down their booths, but I managed to see some of the products like jewelry that had been offered.

The milling crowd consisted of the requisite Euro-hippies, youngsters and oldsters in all form of dress, and drunken hostellers with wannabe dreadlocks and a beer in each pocket of their cargo pants.

The square was quite large and was lined with well preserved historical residences, many of which also had bars, cafes and McDonaldses at ground level. Petr, who had accompanied us, pointed out the town hall, the recently renovated astrological clock and the huge central fountain, which is a Baroque column depicting the Holy Trinity. There was also a smaller fountain, and Petr told me it was the seventh such fountain in Olomouc, which is why it’s called the City of Fountains.

Across from the Holy Trinity column had been erected a bandstand with a chalkboard list of performers next to it. The last band of the day, ASPM (Amateur Association of Professional Musicians), was just tuning up. Libor, who has a Rain-Man-like knowledge of all rock music, knew the band and was thrilled because he said they were great.

And they were. However, it was really cold by then and I was wearing only sandals. I was freezing, in addition to being completely exhausted by the day’s activities. So, after a few songs I begged off and we headed back to the hotel. We walked the 25 minutes or so in the dark, taking pictures of some of the sights along the way that looked awesome in the dark.

Olomouc, a city of about 100,000, had left a very good impression upon me. If you ever get the chance to visit the Czech Republic, you must visit Olomouc as well. That is, after Prague and my beloved Liberec!

Europe 2009 - Friday 1 May

2009-05-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

On Friday, May 1, I awoke after a wonderful sleep at Edita’s parents’ house in Okříšky, in the Czech Republic. Since I’m an early riser, I got to enjoy the quiet of the Moravian morning as I poked about the backyard and photographed things such as Edita’s mother’s hens:

Once I discovered that I was locked out of the main house (remember that I had bunked in the other half of the duplex) and not wanting to wake anyone by knocking, I photographed some more! After a while I heard the children inside and knocked on the mudroom door. Edita’s mother came to let me in, tsking in Czech and showing me to the kitchen where a wonderful feast of homemade goodies was laid out.

Since the Czech word for “coffee” was one of the first ones I learned, I soon had a steaming cup in hand and settled in with the children to watch TV. They were watching a “clay-mation” show called “Pat a Mat – a je to!” (“Pat and Mat – and that’s it!”), a famous children’s show from the 6o’s or 70’s. Each little episode lasts about 8 minutes or so and in it Pat and Mat solve a problem while simultaneously creating at least a dozen more.

I’d heard of the series but never seen it. It was delightful! Two Slovakian men created and produced the series back when there was still a Czechoslovakia. Now it’s known as a Slovakian creation. There are about 50 episodes altogether, I believe, and they are mostly wordless, so anyone can enjoy them.

You can see a few details about the series at www.patandmat.com. You can also find episodes on YouTube.com if you search for “Pat and Mat”. “Laundry Day” is one of my favorite episodes. I especially like the way they end most episodes: with a handshake and a forearm bump. They’re cool.

After about 5 episodes, eventually everyone wandered in for breakfast and shortly thereafter Libor, Edita and I set off for the city of Brno as planned. The kids would stay at the grandparents’ for the weekend. We drove about an hour or so to Brno on a beautiful, temperate, sunny spring day.

Spring in Europe is always an enormous treat for me. I remember my first year in Germany in 1988 where it seemed that, literally overnight, ALL the spring flowers and fields burst forth with blooms and blossoms so that I was greeted on Easter morning with a veritable cacophony of color, fragrance and texture everywhere I looked. So I was especially looking forward to this trip since it had been a while since I saw springtime there.

I was not disappointed. Everywhere I looked flowers abounded. Here are some of the flowers I shot at Hilde’s on my first few days in Europe this year:

Also, in Germany and in the Czech Republic, both from trains and cars, I saw square after square of vibrant yellow fields, creating a checkerboard effect in the rolling landscape of otherwise green fields.

These fields were of rapeseed (Raps in German and řepkového in Czech), which is pressed for its oil that’s used in cooking. It’s so extensively planted that I could smell it in the air when I was near it, an odor that was not offensive, but a bit rank and a tad oily in nature.

In researching this plant for my journal, I discovered canola oil is made from it. In fact, I was surprised to learn that there was no such thing as a canola plant per se until recently; instead, “canola” is an acronym coined in the 1970’s and stands for “Canada Oil – Low Acid.” I guess the term “rapeseed” was found to be detrimental from a marketing standpoint.

Why “Canada”? Probably because of the location of development of a hybrid of rapeseed that makes it better for human consumption. Now the plants are known as Canola plants, and they were cross-bred from rapeseed plants. One last FYI: the word “rapeseed” comes from the Latin word rapum, which means turnip. Rapeseed plants, turnips, rutabega, mustard, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts are all related species.

Another stunning spring flower that pervades the Czech Republic is lilac. Lilacs were blooming literally EVERYWHERE. Along every sidewalk, in every garden, manicured or not, in every park, at every tourist site. More than one person told me that, when the Russian soldiers came to Czechoslovakia at the end of WWII to liberate them from the Nazis, Czech children waved lilac branches in greeting and celebration. It seems to be a prevalent story associated with lilacs. My personal association was that my grandmother had a huge lilac bush in her yard when I was little and that I hadn’t enjoyed that wonderful fragrance in many, many years.

Well, that’s it for this time. Stay tuned for my next journal where I’ll describe my encounter with neonazis and some of the most beautiful towns I’ve seen to date.

Europe 2009 - Thursday 30 April

2009-04-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, April 30, Libor and Edita (they visited Florida in March) and their two kids picked me up from Jana’s in the late afternoon. We were on a road trip to Moravia! Some of you may know that the Czech Republic is made up of three regions: Bohemia in the north and west, Moravia in the south and east, and a small bit of Silesia in the easternmost part. Most of my friends live in northern Bohemia, so our trek was south and east. Both Libor and Edita are from that area and we would spend the night at Edita’s parents house in a tiny, unpronounceable village called Okříšky (if you’d like to attempt the pronunciation, it’s something like “oak-zhi-shky”).

In any case, they arrived in Libor’s Toyota LandCruiser, a big, green monster that is quite unusual to see in Europe. As Libor described it, “It’s thirsty.” Must’ve cost a fortune to operate since gas was hovering around the equivalent of $5 per gallon. Libor drove, of course, and I had shotgun, with Edita and the two kids in the back seat.

It was dusk when we set out for the three-hour drive. It was also Pálení Čarodějnic, or Witch’s Night, which is an annual Czech celebration on the last night of April wherein giant bonfires are lit and people gather round them til the wee hours. The story goes that it originated centuries ago in less enlightened times with the burning of those considered to be witches. What it actually is today, however, is a celebration of Spring and a good excuse for a party outdoors on what is usually one of the first nights that it’s warm enough to do so. You still need the fire, though.

Now, I have Wiccans as friends, some of them in the audience for this travel journal, and I don’t mean to offend them in any way by using the term “witch” in this manner. Please know that I am merely presenting the terminology that was related to me. Aside from the name of the event, there is no serious opinion among anyone I know that “real witches” are or should be burned or that it’s an event based in any serious superstition about “evil spirits”. In fact, my understanding is that Witches Night roughly corresponds to Beltane, a pagan festival celebrated around the same time with bonfires and parties. Don’t the lines get blurred as we stumble toward enlightenment!

My take on it was that everyone feels a freedom this time of year in being out from under the snows of winter. I figure that people are burning up the rest of their woodpiles in joy that they won’t need them anymore this year. They are also known to burn old broomsticks as well as part of the tradition.

In any case, the night had a real feeling of Halloween for me, I holiday I absolutely love in America. As we sped through the darkening Czech countryside, fires began dotting the hillsides and I could see people gathered around the closer ones. As we sped through the darkening landscape, a game evolved: the first one in the car to spot the next fire would shout out and point for the others to see. We would then rate it as far as whether it was too small or lame, big enough, or impressively giant.

As the misty fog gathered around us and the twilight faded, I saw a few children dressed as “witches” in the smaller villages we passed through, and everyone seemed to be on their way to the community fire, wherever that happened to be. People cooked food over the fires and, of course, I’m sure there was lots of drinking involved. As a matter of fact, Edita was on the phone several times with her parents as we drove toward their house, and they were in the process of cleaning up their outdoor grill to have a cookout when we arrived there. Edita said they hadn’t used it in over four years, so I know it was not only because of Witches Night but also that they were welcoming me.

I missed a great photograph that night, but I didn’t have my camera ready and we passed by it so quickly I would have missed it anyway. The biggest fire by far we saw that night looked more like a barn engulfed in flames about 100 yards or so off the highway. As we passed by it in the dark, the small group of people gathered around it was silhouetted against the enormous conflagration. I had the impression they were dancing; they were all in motion, but as we sped past I saw a stop-action image of them, all in different poses. It was as if I were the camera and the flames were the flash. That image will always be Witches’ Night to me.

For about the last 30 minutes of our trip we drove a small, single-lane paved road through woods and open countryside. There were no streetlights nor any other lights that I could see. Except for our headlights, it was VERY dark. No other cars appeared and I’m not sure I saw any road signs that would have indicated where Libor should turn. There were not any fires in view, either. I’m not used to being that far out in the country.

When we reached Okříšky, Edita pointed out a house they used to live in and the school she had attended. A few streets later we turned right and headed up a steeply graded neighborhood, then right again at the top of the hill and one more right to arrive at our destination. Mom was standing outside waiting for us; oh, I might mention it had turned COLD! The thought of the imminent cookout did not thrill me, but, as we were greeting with hugs all around for family and cordial introductions for me, the warmest parka was slid around my shoulders and we all hustled through the laundry room into the back yard.

There we found Edita’s brother at the brick grill, using a flashlight to see when the food was done. We all crowded around the plastic picnic table and chairs, huddling together and snuggling in our coats as paper plates were handed back and forth and food was proffered with immodest frequency.

Let me digress for a moment. I mentioned already, of course, that Edita and Libor visited me for two weeks in Florida earlier in the year. They arrived bearing gifts, and one of those gifts was a bottle of homemade slivovice, or “slivovitz” in English. Slivovice is a distilled liquor made from plums. It’s a traditional Moravian liquor and it’s very, very strong. I had had some at a Prague restaurant a few years ago and it was like drinking pure-grain alcohol. This experience made me hesitant about drinking the stuff that they brought in March.

However, Libor was insistent, saying this was made by Edita’s uncle and that it was quite good. Edita even told me that, in the longstanding Moravian tradition, her grandfather had made a batch of slivovice when she was born that was intended to be served at her wedding. The buried barrel of it was unearthed almost 30 years later for the nuptials and it was in fine form. So, I learned that the longer it’s aged, the smoother it becomes. The stuff they brought me was about 10 years old, I believe.

In addition, they kept saying it was very healthy, which turns out to be the standard story for the stuff among Czechs. In fact, the tradition says you should down a shot of it each morning to maintain health. Moravians tell many anecdotes about its curing this or that ailment.

So I tried it at breakfast with Libor the first day of their visit. It actually wasn’t too bad! It was still very strong, but it had a warm, plum flavor. It was much better than the razor blades I’d had in Prague.

One thing, though, about the slivovice that they brought to Florida: when we were toasting, a drop or two ran down the bottle and onto my varnished wood dining table. I’m here to tell you that there is still a whitish ring on my table from that! Need I tell you that the remainder of the bottle is still in my refrigerator? Come on over and we’ll do some shots. Or you will!

Anyway, once Edita’s father arrived at our picnic table, slivovice was offered all around. I had a shot and it warmed me up, but I couldn’t do another one. I think I gave Americans a bad name for that. In any case, the grilled chicken was absolutely delicious, as was everything else served that night. I asked Edita’s mother for her recipes, but she could only say that she used “whatever was in the kitchen” that day. This kind of cook makes the best food, but it’s very difficult to get any good recipes from them! It didn’t help that she spoke no English and I no Czech.

Another new thing I tried that night was a local beer brand: Ježek (pronounced “yezh-eck”), which means “hedgehog.” You have to understand that hedgehogs are everywhere in that part of the world. I remember in Prague, during the summer of 2005 while getting my teaching certificate, standing in a phone booth after dark to call my husband in the US with several hedgehogs poking around my feet. This happened a lot.

Also, my friend Dalin told Jana and me a story last year about how he had to pet-sit for his daughter. One of the pets was something that was kept in an old fish tank and stunk to high heaven. He asked Jana the English word for what he was trying to say, and she pronounced it so weirdly that I couldn’t pick up on it right away. We had a great laugh about it once I figured out that she was trying to say “hedgehog”. It had come out something like “hetch-eck”. Then, last year when my friends requested “Cowboy Names”, Jana said Dalin’s was “Hedgehog” but that it had to be pronounced like she’d said it.

So, when I saw that the beer bottle had a picture of a hedgehog and the word “Ježek”, it all became clear: the Czech pronunciation is very similar to what she’d been saying in English last year. I was delighted to discover this, of course, and even more delighted when, the next morning, Edita presented me with the beer label she’d soaked off the bottle for my journal. In addition, Edita’s father gave me a couple of bottles of it when we left, as well as a bottle of homemade slivovice, of course!

If you’d like to see what the Ježek label looks like, check out the brewery’s web site: http://www.pivovar-jihlava.cz. It’s made in a village called Jihlava near where I was that night. Oh, and it tastes great!

Eventually I had to turn in, so Edita’s mother and brother bustled around and led me to the house next door, which was actually part of the parents’ house but which had been duplexed when one of the brothers married. Since Edita’s father was a builder, the duplex job was wonderful, and the inside of the part of the house where I was to sleep in was much newer than the other half. I had the feeling that I’d routed someone out of his bed for the night, something I wish people wouldn’t do but that I appreciate immensely.

So I had to actually walk around the corner of the house to the other entrance and enter that domicile. My room was above the ground level in a sort of loft configuration but that could be closed off with a door to the stairs. The bed was SO comfortable and it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, though I could still hear the family in the backyard talking and laughing. I’m sure they were there for hours, but I was out like a light! I’m glad I got my rest because the next day would prove to be very interesting indeed!

Stay tuned for Neonazis, Brno, Olomouc, and private tours of museums!