30 Days and Counting

The end of the semester is next week, and after this short but intense spurt of writing and studying, I will have my last weeks of rest, relaxation, and packing, lots of packing. Packing like this requires deep focus and the evaluation of various practical and philosophical considerations. People on the program are talking about the end of the year as though it were the looming apocalypse, which it essentially is for our lives here. Like most everyone else, I find myself looking forward to my return stateside with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, now starting to realize how very weird it will be, not to mention how many fat people I will see. It's already hard enough to write with somewhat proper grammar in my emails and this blog, so there will be lot's of moments where I'll blank on a word mid-sentence or something comes out garbled, just fair warning. By next blog I will have given much thought to my impending return, and will have my reflections on the things I have looked forward to/missed the most in America, and what I will miss about Germany/wish it were that way in the US.

I took a trip to the Rhine and Mosel river valleys I wanted to write about a couple of weeks ago. Sorry to have taken my time getting to it; I was reading a couple of plays for a class at the program and preparing a presentation for my class at the university, and I just couldn't get it done. I know, I know, elbows and assholes. Nonetheless, a couple weeks ago I met up with a friend from high school who had been studying in Seville but happened to be in Düsseldorf, but without anyone to travel with and without any German. I flew into Köln (Cologne) and met her at the train station, as the two cities are not far from one another. It was a very humid weekend which ranged from drizzle to hot relatively partly cloudy skies. We didn't spend all that much time in Köln, as interesting of a place it is, there were other priorities on the trip. We visited the tallest cathedral in Germany, a very detailed High-Gothic edifice that stands about 100 meters from the main train station, and the chocolate museum. There is an enormous gold coffin elevated at the rear of the alter, supposedly holding the body of one of the three kings who followed the star from the east in search of the Christ child. That is quite a claim, in the Middle Ages that would have been regarded as a relic of tremendous power, and at the very least would attract many pilgrims and bring prestige to the city. The chocolate factory was a great time as one can imagine, and there was a little free chocolate, but the exhibits we're pretty cool, and even thinking about it makes my stomach groan for chocolate.

From Köln we went to Aachen, the famous capitol of Charlemagne, known in Germany as Karl der Große, where he had his cathedral built. It is pretty small for a cathedral, but was built in the late 8th century. Successive Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned there for 600 years. Charlemagne had it built it in the Byzantine style, inspired by the Hagia Sophia in then Constantinople, and it is very brightly painted and decorated inside with an abundance of gold. Unfortunately, when we were there it had become cloudy, dark, and grey, and it was hard to get a clear picture in there as no flash is allowed. It is a very interesting building architecturally, as you can see where it was expanded, but this time in the Gothic style. His palace, which is right behind the cathedral is now the city hall, but when we got here they had just stopped letting people in, so said the security guard taking a smoke break on the front steps of the building.

We returned to Köln by train to get our bags out of the lockers and go to Cochem, on the Mosel. We didn't get in until nearly 11:00 that night and had to navigate to the Gasthof in the dark. My friend was worried after having studied in Seville, but I assured that we were in a quaint medieval town, not in Berlin, and furthermore in Germany, which is a relatively crime less police state. We got to the hostel with our wallets, kidneys, and lives. As you go down some parts these rivers, you'll lose sight of one castle just as another comes into view, and the land between is filled with vineyards; it is magnificent country. Pretty much every town is an important bend in the river, with a castle perched on a cliff above the river, enforcing the lord's tariff on river trade. Some of the castles are maintained as a private residence by the royal family who owns it, or some rich business man who was able to acquire one. The castle in Cochem was destroyed by the Armies of Louis XIV when he temporarily wrestled the Rheinland away from German hands, but was restored by a 19th century business man. The hunting room of the caslte has the head and shoulders of a bore that had to have been 450 pounds, brought down by muskets and finished off with spears; c'mon Bob and Dave, let's see some real hunting. In the armory there is the is a 220 pound suit of plate armor belonging to a 7 foot tall Austrian night, an enormous person for the early 15th century and quite an intimidating prospect on the battle field. The hill sides leading up to the castle are covered in vineyards and you can see right where the stone of the castle meets the solid rock on the ridge. It is very pretty, and redone to be more of a residence than a fortification and barracks, the garden was full of big beautiful red rose bushes that had to be a couple centuries old. Our tour was on the tail end of a wedding and the couple was taking pictures, sounds like a pretty sweet spot for a wedding, then again I do study medieval history. On our way back down the hill we picked up a chilled bottle of local dry white wine for about 2.50 Euro, which was surprisingly good and normally don't like white wine, and walked back down to the town and drank it sitting on the grass by the river like a couple of real class acts. While exploring the old town we came across a tower within the city that was now a place to stay, a little cold in the winter I imagine.

We spent that afternoon taking a boat down the mosel to Koblenz, where the Mosel and Rhein meet, reading and watching the country go by. What they don't tell you is that the Mosel is controlled by river locks, which took up to an hour to go through, which really drove you crazy. I'm pretty sure they use this to break you down and force you to buy a 4 Euro ($6) beer or glass of wine, but we resisted and waited till we got to the train station bar to blow off some steam, where we watched a bit of the Russia/Netherlands game in the quarterfinals of the European Championships. We took a train that said it was going to Boppard, our next overnight stay about 25 minutes away; the train didn't stop for more than an hour until we got to Mainz, considerably east of where we wanted to be, and it was already close to midnight. I called the Gasthof and they told me I was too late and had lost the reservation, but we still got to pay for the room. Now we found ourselves looking for a place to sleep that night in Mainz. I half-jokingly suggested we just sleep in the train station then get an early start to the day. She didn't find it have funny and I was met with one of those stares a woman will give you when you've said something truly stupid or offensive. So I just started asking around and found there was a hostel not far by bus. Eventually we figured out which bus to take, and after a fairly confusing and dark walk we came upon the hostel at about one, which still had a couple of open beds. Sticky and pissed off, I hit the shower and went to bed. About 6 hours later he sun hit our window and sent an inescapable laser beam of light strait into my eyes, rise and shine. This day was the hottest and most humid, and a very active day for us, schlepping our bags from one place to another. We got a regional day pass at the station and took the train back up to Boppard, where we got a light lunch and kept our bag with the owners of the restaurant/Gasthof; in my experience, nice old ladies don't rob you. Save for a really pretty Romanesque church and a few stones from a huge old Roman fort, there wasn't too much to see in the city so we got back on the train and went to St. Goar. We did a repeat of earlier, found a nice looking Gasthof, order something and feel out the people there, then ask to leave our stuff behind the desk. We made the walk up the hill to Burg Rheinfalls which was once the largest fortress on the Rhein. Today it is a ruin and at first did not appear to be so big, until you start to realize that certain parts are not outer walls but rather the side of huge keeps and other buildings, and that the outer walls are further down. The fortress holds a commanding position over the river with two other, smaller castles in sight. This translates to a really healthy walk on a really sticky day. After we explored the old city, we had a couple of well earned gin and tonics before taking the ferry across the river to the train station on the other side. We took a 30 minutes train to Rüdesheim for our final overnight stay, and this time we arrived with plenty of daylight left. After lying still as a couple of lizards in our room we made our way to a resaurant which had a big TV set up outside where we watched Spain upset Italy, much to the enjoyment of three Spanish men sitting at a table near us. The next day we explored the town and made our way to take a gondola of sorts, which takes you over a vineyard colored hillside up to a great hill where the Niederwalddenkmal is. It is a statue of the Goddess Germania, and a monument of their victory in the Franco-German war of 1870-1871, which was started by France, by the way. Following their decisive victory, WIlhelm I was crowned German Emperor, signifying the final unification of Germany into the 2nd Reich (Empire). It is enormous and maybe the coolest thing I've seen in Europe; stylistically is a mixture of classical and early modern. Aside from commemorating the various battles and the German states that fought in the war, there is an inscription on the memorial, whose English translation it given below, but it sounds much better and is more poetic.

A call roars like thunderbolt,
like clashing swords and splashing waves:
To the Rhine, the Rhine, to the German Rhine,
who wants to be the stream's guardian?

Through hundreds of thousands it quickly twitches,
and everybody's eyes brightly flash;
the German, respectable, pious, and strong,
protects the sacred county border.

He looks up to the meadows of heaven,

where ancient heroes glance down,
and swears with proud pugnacity:
You Rhine will remain German like my chest!

As long as a drop of blood still glows,
a fist still draws the dagger,
and one arm still holds the rifle,
no enemy will here enter your shore!

The oath rings out, the billow runs
the flags wave high in the wind:
On the Rhine, on the German Rhine
we all want to be the guardian.

When we got back to Rüdesheim I spied a restaurant with an Andechs flag, and I had to seize the opportunity for Heidi to sample some real Bavarian beer, possible the best there is. Andechs is a Benedictine Monastery that I had visited before the trip. It is about an hour's train ride outside of München, and after a 5km hike through the forest up to "Holy Mountain" (Heiligen Berg) you're pretty thirsty, especially on a hot day like we had. The monastary has a very pretty baroque chapel and is surrounded by fields of mustard and wild flowers. Most importantly, Andechs has what I consider to be the best beer there is, or at least that I've ever had, especially their Doppelboch Dunkel, a strong but very tasty dark beer originally brewed for times of fasting such as Lent, because it was nutritious and filling. We had some masses in the Biergarten and had lunch, I had a lamb shank that was unbelievable. The walk back to the trains station was considerably easier, as was the healthy nap we took upon our return after a little warm up on the train. All around this was a terrific day, and I will have to go back to Andechs one more time before I leave. Most of the beers in Germany were started at monasteries but are now secularly owned, but there are still many smaller breweries with limited production that are still monastically brewed.

Germany lost the European Championship to Spain after a huge win over Turkey, which was a big game here since there are something like 6 million Turks in Germany. I watched the game at a friends house, and after the game we immediately headed into the city. We went to Ludwigstraße, the parade avenue where München's triumphal arch is. The crowds were filled with crazy Germans, who were still relatively well behaved i spite of the tremendous energy in the crowd. Every once in a while someone would climb up and yell "auf die Knie! auf die Knie!" which basicaly means take a knee, then everyone will immediately drop down, then stick their fists straight out and chant some German gibberish, it was a little disconcerting.

May was hot and beautiful, June was rainy, cloudy, cool, and humid, and so far July has been blustery and full of thunder storms. Our 4th of July celebrations were derailed by poor weather which didn't clear up till late in the afternoon, so most of the day was spent drinking beer and talking about how much fun we're missing out on in the US. People were curious about how big of a deal the 4th of July is in the US, as such holidays in some other countries aren't that big of a deal. They have no idea. I was wished a happy 4th of July day by one neighbor in English, but if anyone knew it was the 4th of July they would normally say "fröhliche Unabhängigkeitstag" which means "happy independence day."

That's all for now, thanks for tuning in.