Saturday was our big excursion to Nürnberg, and was a bit of a debacle from the beginning. We took a 9am train on a Saturday that was completely full. Thankfully I was able to stake out a nice bit of floor which I occupied for about 30 minutes, when at on of our stops I had to cede the space to someone in a wheel chair. Evicted, I traveled to the next car, able to find a patch of floor next to the bathroom that was free. Our limited room became all the more limited when two blind girls, one following the other, came in and decided to settle down. I was not the happiest camper this side of the Danube as I continued to suffer from the tyranny of the disabled, about which I could do nothing. I was able to enjoy the last 20 minutes of our 90 minute trip to Nürnberg in a seat; I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Upon arrival we were following our guides across the street and found ourselves on the street car tracks with trains coming in both directions and were nearly killed. We visited the Third Reich Museum, where the great Nazi arena's and other buildings were constructed. It was a thoroughly interesting museum, but as is typical with these excursions, we were limited to little more than an hour due to time constraints. We were late getting to lunch so we had to it on the go, in the rain, on our city tour. Nürnberg is a very old, historical city which takes great pride in it's most famous citizen, Albrecht Dürer. We went to visit a Gothic Cathedral there, and were surprised by the amount of police vehicles we were seeing. We knew there was a soccer match that day, but this seemed a little excessive. Soon we saw what all the fuss was about. Around 1,000 Turks holding an pro-war rally in front of our destination. It was an odd mix of flags, speeches, and techno-music. Seriously, one minute they're talking about 40 years of Kurdish terrorism, and the next they're dancing away. It's so good to know that something will finally be done about the one stable place in Iraq. We've already left the Kurds hanging once, to be gassed and strafed by Saddam's helicopters, to do it again would prove just how inept the US and western democracies in general are at pursuing any sort of long term foreign policy goals.
The city tour was followed by a quick visit to the Germanistik Museum, an art museum in Nürnberg. One very interesting thing we saw were these enormous doll houses. They were not designed to be play things for the children, but rather models of their home, down to the silverware. Apparently it is easier to show a model of your palatial home rather than to give your guests an exhausting tour of the cavernous place.
Overall it was a rainy, rushed day, and while I can say that I've seen Nürnberg, I can't say that I remember much of it. We were happy to get on the train and back to München, since everything bad seems to happen to us when were outside of the city. Alas, the train was delayed by 30 minutes when we were only 15 minutes outside of the city because of some work being done on the rails. At least we had seats but boy were we ready to get back to the Studentenstadt and have a beer.
This week has been more unseasonable rainy-coldness. I've had a busy week and had to scramble to put together a presentation that I though wasn't until next week. I was able to tackle it with some quick thinking and a California smile, though, whew!
Now some administrative stuff; I need to create a group email list so that every time I post a blog, I don't have to send out individual emails to the thousands of readers I have. If you could just email me, indicating that you would like to be on that list, I would appreciate it. This way you will always know when I new blog is posted, as I imagine the anticipation for each riveting installment is rather nerve-wracking.
The email address I will use to manage the blog is kkalanz@hotmail.com and all announcements will come from that email address.
No comments:
Post a Comment