Our first two days in London were characterized by drizzle, rain, and more drizzle and two very good Harry Potter and the Cursed Child shows.
We are staying at the Kensington Hilton, which isn't near anything particularly interesting (other than a shopping center), but is well located on the Central Tube line so that we can get to everywhere we want to go. Our first day we had to pick up our Harry Potter tickets early, then went back to the hotel to fully unpack and dry off and then headed out to the show (more on that below). The second day we went to the National Gallery (we sort of did the Rick Steves' "see the best of the best through the ages" tour, though we did find two very nice Vermeers on our own plus some JMW Turners we didn't know were there), then tried to get into the Churchill War Rooms, but it was already booked full for the day at 1pm -- it was a holiday (Good Friday) so lots of extra people, both tourists and locals -- and then went to the Tate Modern (this was a google maps screwup -- I was trying to get to the Tate Britain), where there were so many people we just left again. We had dinner near the theatre (see below) and went off to part 2 of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
We really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It has fantastic special effects. Lots of fire, where I can't imagine how they got permission from the fire marshals to have that level of realism in the theatre (fire places, burning beds, torches, wands that shoot fire, all of which we are pretty sure were real flames), lots of flying or flying-like activity and much more that I can't tell you about without spoilers. The cast was superb. You can tell that JK Rowling was involved in the production personally, as every character fit their description from the books perfectly. I don't want to give things away, but it's over all a pretty dark story about teenagers and fathers who don't get along, a need to save the world, but screwing up while doing so, and lots of "cameo appearances" by most of the salient characters of the Harry Potter world (including all/most of the old bad guys, some reformed bad guys and some new bad guys). My personal favorite character was Moaning Myrtle. I'm sure it would depend on who plays the character, but she was fantastic in this production.
For food, I have been trying to "eat local" in the sense of eating traditional foods of the area (as I did in Brussels and to some extent in Germany). On Thursday, when we first arrived, we found a lovely pub right next to the theatre, the Cambridge, where we went for a late lunch. I had a chicken, leek and brie pie with a puff pastry crust, which was vaguely similar to the vol au vent I had in Brussels, though the Brussels version was better. Jay had a club sandwich (very different from a US one, with thick bread and roasted/poached chicken). Jay decided we should eat there again before the second performance (when certain people find something they like, they aren't willing to try something new, in case it might not be as good :-), where I had fish and scampi and chips. The batter fried cod was superb, the chips were OK, the breaded scampi/shrimp were mediocre, and the mushy peas were "interesting". I also had a very good butternut squash soup. On Friday, we had coffee at the National Gallery, where I decided to sample a Bakewell tart. This is an almond tart with jam and marzipan in the middle. Very sweet. At that point, I felt like I had sampled most of the essential British foods, all of which were fatening. And then on Saturday (which I'll cover in the next post), we went to Oxford, where we ate at the Eagle and Child (the pub where Tolkien and C. S. Lewis used to gather), which turns out to nowadays be part of the same chain as the Cambridge, and had exactly the same menu. This time I went for a vege soup (pretty mediocre) and a cherry tomato tart with small salad (excellent). I'm done with "eating British", and am looking for other kinds of food. On the other hand, tomorrow night we eat "modern British food" at a high end restaurant, where I have high hopes. Let's hope that they serve something different from fish and chips or meat pie.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Next Leg of the Trip
We leave Duisburg in the morning for the vacation leg of our trip (yes, I know we've been vacationing, but there has also been a bit of work involved. The rest is pure vacation). We spend the next eight days in London, where we:
- see four plays, including Hamilton, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- visit Stonehenge and Bath
- visit Oxford
- see a bunch of museums and walk around various neighborhoods
- eat in nice restaurants
After that we head to Naples (with a stop to do laundry), where I think we have 2 days of sightseeing and a seven day group hiking trip along the Amalfi Coast. No plays, but I expect to eat even better in Italy than in London. Jay may have to roll me onto the plane.
Then a quick overnight in Frankfurt and we head homeward. It will be time.
I'm not sure how regularly I will be able to blog in London, especially with so many late night activities, but I will try.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Brussels, part 2
Saturday was a "see as much of the city as possible" day. The weather was sunny and mild. Rick Steves' guidebooks have become our go-to resources, primarily because he provides walks around a given city that cover most of what you would want to see, and we like to see cities on foot. Rick gave us two walks. We started with the "upper town" walk (upper in the sense of "uphill"), because it contained the museums, and we wanted to get there before the crowds. Brussels houses three museums in a single building. We started with the Old Masters, of which there were plenty, but none we found notable (I tend to like the non-religious art of the Dutch masters, but this wasn't particularly compelling). There is a (minor) Rembrandt here, but it was out for cleaning. Probably the best were the Bruegels (father and son). My advice would be that unless you love this period of art, this museum could be skipped.
The Fin de Siecle museum had Impressionists and others of about that time period and some absolutely gorgeous Art Deco furniture. glassware, etc. The impressionists were ho-hum, though this was my first introduction to James Ensor, who mostly painted slightly macabre people in masks, and I found him interesting. There were quite a few pointillists, if that appeals. But the Art Deco stuff made it worth the time.
But the best of the set was the Magritte Museum. Three floors of his life. I wasn't particularly familar with his early work or his work during the war (limited in many ways by the Nazis), so that interested me. He got his start doing posters, book covers and other advertising, very different style than his later work, but intriguing. He also met his wife when she was 14 and he was 17, I think, and they were together till he died. This covered the first two floors. The final flour was the work he is most famous for -- the oddly juxtaposed items that seem to be either a puzzle or a joke. Few of his really famous pieces are there. I remember one that shows a nest on a window ledge with two eggs, and the mountain seen through the window is in the shape of an eagle. There was another one showing a window, where the glass is broken as if a rock had been thrown through it, and the image you see through the glass is painted on the glass, but it is the same image that you see when looking through the broken areas. And while his famous "this is not a pipe" painting (of a pipe) was not there, a later painting of a pipe, labelled "this is still not a pipe" was in the collection. Magritte is one of my favorite painters -- I love his sense of playfulness -- so I obviously enjoyed it, but so did Jay, who is not a rabid Magritte fan.
The rest of the upper town walk was to visit various buildings, churches and gardens. We walked through the Sablon neighborhood, which seems to be one of the ritzier parts of town, based on the number of high-end chocolatiers and clothing stores. In one garden, where Brussels' "home boys" were honored with statues, we had to take Jay's picture next to Gerhard Mercator, as Jay is funded here in Germany as a Mercator Fellow (Mercator was from Brussels, but lived much of his adult life in Duisburg). Here they both are:
The lower town walk takes you through some of the older parts of town (the upper town buildings are mostly from the 19th century). We started with the famous Grand Place, the big square that is really the heart of Brussels. Here is a picture taken on our way home from dinner,showing it at night:
Of course we had to see the famous "Mannekin Pis", the statue of a peeing boy. It was erected in 1619 to provide drinking water for the neighborhood. When we arrived he was dressed in some sort of Belgian regalia (this is a regular occurence; Rick Steves says that he dresses as an Elvis impersonator on Elvis's birthday, and on Prostate Awareness Day, his flow slows to a trickle); however, before I could get my camera positioned, a guy came and removed his uniform. So I just captured him al fresco.
We walked through the Galeries Royales St. Hubert, which is the original enclosed shopping mall. The enclosed walkway is about 200m long (we were looking for a specific cafe and almost gave up before finding it). We also viewed the Church of St. Nicholas, where there are shops (primarily jewelers) built into the wall of the church. The Jewelers provided the money to rebuild the church in the 1700s and in return were given this prime real estate in which to live and set up shop (I presume they don't live above the shops any more). This facade (the church entrance is on the left) looks pretty unchanged from that time, though most of the others have had major modernizations.
Rick Steves pointed out this lovely bar that still has its Art Deco decorations.
And we encountered this poster, which gives you an idea of what Belgians think of the US these days.
It's captured through a shop window, so maybe a bit of description is in order: this is Trump as the Statue of Liberty, with a broken Scales of Justice in his right hand (clearly broken by too much money being put on the scales) and a nuclear warhead in his left hand.
To give you an idea of how much ground we covered, fitbit gave me credit for 13 miles.
The next morning was the Daylight Savings time shift for Europe, so we slept in and went directly to the train station. The trip home was uneventful.
The Fin de Siecle museum had Impressionists and others of about that time period and some absolutely gorgeous Art Deco furniture. glassware, etc. The impressionists were ho-hum, though this was my first introduction to James Ensor, who mostly painted slightly macabre people in masks, and I found him interesting. There were quite a few pointillists, if that appeals. But the Art Deco stuff made it worth the time.
But the best of the set was the Magritte Museum. Three floors of his life. I wasn't particularly familar with his early work or his work during the war (limited in many ways by the Nazis), so that interested me. He got his start doing posters, book covers and other advertising, very different style than his later work, but intriguing. He also met his wife when she was 14 and he was 17, I think, and they were together till he died. This covered the first two floors. The final flour was the work he is most famous for -- the oddly juxtaposed items that seem to be either a puzzle or a joke. Few of his really famous pieces are there. I remember one that shows a nest on a window ledge with two eggs, and the mountain seen through the window is in the shape of an eagle. There was another one showing a window, where the glass is broken as if a rock had been thrown through it, and the image you see through the glass is painted on the glass, but it is the same image that you see when looking through the broken areas. And while his famous "this is not a pipe" painting (of a pipe) was not there, a later painting of a pipe, labelled "this is still not a pipe" was in the collection. Magritte is one of my favorite painters -- I love his sense of playfulness -- so I obviously enjoyed it, but so did Jay, who is not a rabid Magritte fan.
The rest of the upper town walk was to visit various buildings, churches and gardens. We walked through the Sablon neighborhood, which seems to be one of the ritzier parts of town, based on the number of high-end chocolatiers and clothing stores. In one garden, where Brussels' "home boys" were honored with statues, we had to take Jay's picture next to Gerhard Mercator, as Jay is funded here in Germany as a Mercator Fellow (Mercator was from Brussels, but lived much of his adult life in Duisburg). Here they both are:
The lower town walk takes you through some of the older parts of town (the upper town buildings are mostly from the 19th century). We started with the famous Grand Place, the big square that is really the heart of Brussels. Here is a picture taken on our way home from dinner,showing it at night:
Of course we had to see the famous "Mannekin Pis", the statue of a peeing boy. It was erected in 1619 to provide drinking water for the neighborhood. When we arrived he was dressed in some sort of Belgian regalia (this is a regular occurence; Rick Steves says that he dresses as an Elvis impersonator on Elvis's birthday, and on Prostate Awareness Day, his flow slows to a trickle); however, before I could get my camera positioned, a guy came and removed his uniform. So I just captured him al fresco.
We walked through the Galeries Royales St. Hubert, which is the original enclosed shopping mall. The enclosed walkway is about 200m long (we were looking for a specific cafe and almost gave up before finding it). We also viewed the Church of St. Nicholas, where there are shops (primarily jewelers) built into the wall of the church. The Jewelers provided the money to rebuild the church in the 1700s and in return were given this prime real estate in which to live and set up shop (I presume they don't live above the shops any more). This facade (the church entrance is on the left) looks pretty unchanged from that time, though most of the others have had major modernizations.
Rick Steves pointed out this lovely bar that still has its Art Deco decorations.
And we encountered this poster, which gives you an idea of what Belgians think of the US these days.
It's captured through a shop window, so maybe a bit of description is in order: this is Trump as the Statue of Liberty, with a broken Scales of Justice in his right hand (clearly broken by too much money being put on the scales) and a nuclear warhead in his left hand.
To give you an idea of how much ground we covered, fitbit gave me credit for 13 miles.
The next morning was the Daylight Savings time shift for Europe, so we slept in and went directly to the train station. The trip home was uneventful.
My new hat
Yes, we'll get back to the Brussels weekend, but first a short interruption to show you my new hat. I mentioned earlier that I had lost a knitted hat and was making myself a new one. The original plan was to use some inexpensive yarn and a simple pattern and whip one up in a week or two, so I would have it for the trip (I have a hat with me, but it doesn't cover my ears, which has been an issue on the colder days.) But I got my yarn and pattern at a yarn expo, where the newest, best and fanciest stuff is on display. I was seduced by a very nice (especially that it looked attractive on me) yarn and hat pattern. The yarn is amazingly soft, which made it a delight to knit up and it will be a delight to wear (though unless it is cold in London, I may not find out till next winter). It took me the entire trip plus 2 weeks before we left, knitting 1-2 hours a day (except on our weekend vacations) to finish it, so it's far from a simple hat. The pattern I chose is called the "Headbumps hat".
So with that lead up, here is the hat:
(It hasn't been blocked yet, so it looks a little misshapen around the edges)
And here I am wearing it:
I'm very happy with it. Might even make another one, if I can find a yarn as nice as this one.
So with that lead up, here is the hat:
(It hasn't been blocked yet, so it looks a little misshapen around the edges)
And here I am wearing it:
I'm very happy with it. Might even make another one, if I can find a yarn as nice as this one.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Brussels, Part 1
Just got back from our weekend in Brussels. Half the people we mentioned the trip to (who had been to Brussels) said "Oh, what a lovely city" and the other half said "Really, what about X instead?" So apparently people either love or hate Brussels. But we had never been there, and we are running out of places within a 2-3 hour train trip to visit.
We arrived about 4pm and just about all the sites close at 5, so we took the subway out to the Atomium (about 5 miles out of town) because it was open till 6. The Atomium is an edifice (I really can't think of a more appropriate word) from the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair. It is a structure in the shape of an iron crystal (body centric cubic, for the science nerds among you), apparently to showcase the Belgian iron and steel industry of the time, both by the shape and that it was built of steel. It's 9 spheres, each about the size of a room, with tubes connecting them. You start by taking an elevator to the top for a 360° view, then head down and visit five of the other spheres for a bunch of exhibits. Here is a picture of it as you approach
We stayed in the central part of town (near the Grand Place) in a nice, but ordinary, Hilton. Brussels is a "weekday" sort of town, at least this time of year, so the rates were low. For a two day trip, I think this is the best location to stay in, as you are close to all the "must see" sights. For a longer visit, I think the St. Catherine neighborhood would be better, as it is a lovely residential neighborhood, somewhat away from the tourists. We had dinner there Saturday night and thought it would be a much more congenial place to stay for anything other than sightseeing.
We ate well, using Rick Steve's guidebook to find restaurants. I did my best to "eat Belgian". The first night we shared a pot of mussels (are you legally allowed to visit Belgium without having mussels?) -- a single pot is 2 kilos, which even allowing for the shells is a lot for two people --and I had a goat cheese salad, apparently a local specialty, as we saw it on other menus. It was goat cheese on toast with honey and sliced apples and a bit of salad mix. For lunch the next day I had a Belgian waffle, perfectly crisp with unsweetened chocolate poured over it. I could eat those daily. And for dinner I had a vol au vent (a fancy frenchified chicken pot pie with a puff pastry crust, which is apparently a Belgian dish, since it was on the regional specialties part of the menu). I really wanted carbonnades des beouf (a flemish beer, onion and beef stew), as I have made this dish at home and wanted to see what the original tasted like, but it was going to be too heavy a dish. I won't cover what Jay ate, as he avoided the specifically Belgian dishes -- he even wanted to go to an Italian restaurant the second night, but we couldn't get in. No accounting for adventuresomeness.
See next post for the rest of the trip.
We arrived about 4pm and just about all the sites close at 5, so we took the subway out to the Atomium (about 5 miles out of town) because it was open till 6. The Atomium is an edifice (I really can't think of a more appropriate word) from the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair. It is a structure in the shape of an iron crystal (body centric cubic, for the science nerds among you), apparently to showcase the Belgian iron and steel industry of the time, both by the shape and that it was built of steel. It's 9 spheres, each about the size of a room, with tubes connecting them. You start by taking an elevator to the top for a 360° view, then head down and visit five of the other spheres for a bunch of exhibits. Here is a picture of it as you approach
It apparently was in serious disrepair/shabbiness a few years ago, but it's been all shined up and made interesting to tourists. There are other parts left over from the World's Fair, including a 1:25 scale model of the major landmarks of Europe (think Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa). Very kitschy. It also includes a design museum that I believe is about 50s design, but it was closed by the time we got there..
The main exhibit is about the 1958 World's Fair and is mostly old, faded memorabilia from that time (record covers, books, photos). The more interesting, temporary exhibit was about Rene Magritte, Belgium's most famous artist. It was a series of interactive constructions that reproduced (and sort of explained, to the extent that anything by Magritte is explainable) some of his most famous paintings.
I couldn't resist the one where you got to be part of the frame
(Like my scarf? I knit it myself).
And here is a view from one of the "atoms"
We stayed in the central part of town (near the Grand Place) in a nice, but ordinary, Hilton. Brussels is a "weekday" sort of town, at least this time of year, so the rates were low. For a two day trip, I think this is the best location to stay in, as you are close to all the "must see" sights. For a longer visit, I think the St. Catherine neighborhood would be better, as it is a lovely residential neighborhood, somewhat away from the tourists. We had dinner there Saturday night and thought it would be a much more congenial place to stay for anything other than sightseeing.
We ate well, using Rick Steve's guidebook to find restaurants. I did my best to "eat Belgian". The first night we shared a pot of mussels (are you legally allowed to visit Belgium without having mussels?) -- a single pot is 2 kilos, which even allowing for the shells is a lot for two people --and I had a goat cheese salad, apparently a local specialty, as we saw it on other menus. It was goat cheese on toast with honey and sliced apples and a bit of salad mix. For lunch the next day I had a Belgian waffle, perfectly crisp with unsweetened chocolate poured over it. I could eat those daily. And for dinner I had a vol au vent (a fancy frenchified chicken pot pie with a puff pastry crust, which is apparently a Belgian dish, since it was on the regional specialties part of the menu). I really wanted carbonnades des beouf (a flemish beer, onion and beef stew), as I have made this dish at home and wanted to see what the original tasted like, but it was going to be too heavy a dish. I won't cover what Jay ate, as he avoided the specifically Belgian dishes -- he even wanted to go to an Italian restaurant the second night, but we couldn't get in. No accounting for adventuresomeness.
See next post for the rest of the trip.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Weather
I know that we Californians are total weather wimps, but it was really thrown in my face with the cold snap this weekend. At one point I was wearing 4 layers -- a merino wool baselayer, a light sweater, a down(like) jacket and a windproof over-jacket. That was enough (it was only in the high 20s), though my gloves aren't warm enough and my head... (see below). But things I observed:
- I thought I was getting paler as I got older, but I realized that it's just that I don't have rosy cheeks from being (permanently) wind burned. No blusher needed by me for the rest of this trip.
- wind chill factor: I had totally forgotten how this ruled our lives in other climates -- it was much more important than the actual temperature (in Speyer at one point, the actual temperature was 32 and the wind chill temperature was 22, so it matters a lot). In the Bay Area wind matters as "we need a cooling breeze" or "the temp is fine when you are standing, but going 10mph on a bike is a lot colder" or even "that headwind is making biking hard", but those are smalltalk talking points, not life-and-death-feeling observations.
- my hat. Shortly before I left for Germany I lost my main knit hat on a hike. I was going to a knitting Expo that week, and decided to shop for some yarn and a simple hat pattern. I could whip a simple hat up waiting in the airport practically. But at an Expo like this, the vendors have their fanciest/nicest yarns and patterns worthy of such material. I ended up with a lovely, soft, part-cashmere yarn and a pattern that I believe will look terrific on me when it is done (I will post a picture when/if I finish it) but is pretty complex -- for the knitters in the audience it is done with short rows and a lot of increases and decreases. I'm not sure if I will finish this hat before we return to the US (where it will sit in my closet till next fall, I am sure). What was I thinking? I do have another hat with me, but it doesn't cover my ears well, so that contributes to my feeling of frostbite.
The weather is going to go back to its previous above-freezing level by Thursday, so I may survive :-) At least the cold has brought sunshine, always welcome during a German winter.
Monday, March 19, 2018
Speyer
We spent the weekend in Speyer. It's about a 2.5 hour train ride from Duisburg. It's in the area where I lived as a child (Kaiserslautern, which is about an hour away), so I suspect I have been here before, but most of the town has clearly been rebuilt since the 1950s -- I don't think the town was bombed in the war, but all the non-historical buildings look like they come from the 80s or 90s; the town must have had a growth spurt then.
The town is lovely, with a interesting combination of modern and old, but winter is probably not the best time to visit it. There are some nice parks to wander through, and you can stroll along the Rhine, but it was pretty chilly, windy and barren. We still managed to fill a day and a half with the various sights.
Speyer is along the German route to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, so there were lots of pilgrims heading to Spain from here (and this is in part why there are so many churches in the town -- they were needed to minister to the pilgrims and they also got money from them) The main street has a statue of such a pilgrim, just down from the old town gate. He looks pretty cold to me with those bare feet.
Speyer has a cathedral (Roman Catholic), a few other Catholic churches and numerous Evangelical churches (by which the Germans primarily mean Lutheran and a few related denominations) --Memorial Church (being a memorial to the Reformation), Trinity Church and Holy Spirit Church are the most notable ones. Speyer was the location of the "Diet of Speyer" in 1529, where a variety of high level folks of the Holy Roman Empire met to conduct church and political business. There had been some "Lutheran reforms" in some counties, but those new-fangled practices were rescinded by the Diet. A group of representatives protested this rescission, which is where we get the term "Protestant" for people who broke off from the Catholic Church. So this town has been at the center of conflict between Catholic and Protestant for a long time.
When we toured the churches, I found there to be a lot more "glitz" (silver, gold, etc) in the Protestant churches than in the cathedral. That surprised me, as my experience of Protestantism is that it's a lot less glitzy. But I think this is in part because these were early Protestant churches, where they had to appeal to what was familiar to people, and because when we visited the history museum (see below), there was a big exhibit of religious items from the cathedral. I wasn't able to figure out how they ended up in custody of the state rather than the church (maybe this was a way to save them/rescue them from the Nazis or the Russians).
Here are my attempts to capture the main churches.
The cathedral:
We also visited the ruins of a former Jewish Synagogue and a pretty intact mikvah (ritual bath). This is apparently the oldest known mikvah in northern Europe, with it being mentioned in writings of the 12th century. Our main reaction was that the whole experience looked cold. And probably was; there was apparently an attendant there to make sure you submerged yourself for the required amount of time. (Of course, it was mostly the women who had to cleanse themselves here). The synagogue was built about the same time as the cathedral (11th Century) and probably by the same masons. The Jewish community in Speyer was extinguished in 1529 by some new laws that made the town unhospitable for Jews. While there was never a thriving Jewish community in Speyer again, in 1940 there were 53 Jews in the town who were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps. Fifteen of them survived, which I find amazingly high given how early in the war this happened.
Here is the actual submersion part viewed from above:
We spent a long time at the Historical Museum of the Rhineland-Pfalz, a local history museum. There was a large, detailed and very interesting exhibit on Richard the Lionhearted, who spent time in Speyer while he was being held for ransom on his return from the Third Crusade. (One of the "cuter" parts was a display of his travels from England and back as a series of tweets superimposed on a map). As Jay said "I didn't expect to go to a quaint town in Germany to get updated on British history". My German is now good enough that I can understand about 90% of the information on museum placards, which enabled me to get a lot more information from the exhibit than Jay did.
There is also a Transportation Museum in Speyer. We didn't pace ourselves well enough to find time to visit this (its hours in the winter are limited, and we got engrossed in Richard the Lionhearted exhibit), but we walked around the outside, where you can see everything from firetrucks to space shuttles. The largest item (that we saw) is a 747. Apparently there is everything you ever wanted to know about vehicles there.
Early Sunday morning it snowed, making our trip back a bit more of an adventure (walking to the train station through the snow -- about 1-2"; a bit of concern about delayed connections, but it all worked out). It was damn cold out both Saturday and Sunday and windy too, at least for us in our inadequate winter clothing.
A nice, relaxing weekend. Even with the cold, it was probably nicer weather than Duisburg, and we took in a lot of history.
The town is lovely, with a interesting combination of modern and old, but winter is probably not the best time to visit it. There are some nice parks to wander through, and you can stroll along the Rhine, but it was pretty chilly, windy and barren. We still managed to fill a day and a half with the various sights.
Speyer is along the German route to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, so there were lots of pilgrims heading to Spain from here (and this is in part why there are so many churches in the town -- they were needed to minister to the pilgrims and they also got money from them) The main street has a statue of such a pilgrim, just down from the old town gate. He looks pretty cold to me with those bare feet.
Speyer has a cathedral (Roman Catholic), a few other Catholic churches and numerous Evangelical churches (by which the Germans primarily mean Lutheran and a few related denominations) --Memorial Church (being a memorial to the Reformation), Trinity Church and Holy Spirit Church are the most notable ones. Speyer was the location of the "Diet of Speyer" in 1529, where a variety of high level folks of the Holy Roman Empire met to conduct church and political business. There had been some "Lutheran reforms" in some counties, but those new-fangled practices were rescinded by the Diet. A group of representatives protested this rescission, which is where we get the term "Protestant" for people who broke off from the Catholic Church. So this town has been at the center of conflict between Catholic and Protestant for a long time.
When we toured the churches, I found there to be a lot more "glitz" (silver, gold, etc) in the Protestant churches than in the cathedral. That surprised me, as my experience of Protestantism is that it's a lot less glitzy. But I think this is in part because these were early Protestant churches, where they had to appeal to what was familiar to people, and because when we visited the history museum (see below), there was a big exhibit of religious items from the cathedral. I wasn't able to figure out how they ended up in custody of the state rather than the church (maybe this was a way to save them/rescue them from the Nazis or the Russians).
Here are my attempts to capture the main churches.
The cathedral:
The Memorial church:
We also visited the ruins of a former Jewish Synagogue and a pretty intact mikvah (ritual bath). This is apparently the oldest known mikvah in northern Europe, with it being mentioned in writings of the 12th century. Our main reaction was that the whole experience looked cold. And probably was; there was apparently an attendant there to make sure you submerged yourself for the required amount of time. (Of course, it was mostly the women who had to cleanse themselves here). The synagogue was built about the same time as the cathedral (11th Century) and probably by the same masons. The Jewish community in Speyer was extinguished in 1529 by some new laws that made the town unhospitable for Jews. While there was never a thriving Jewish community in Speyer again, in 1940 there were 53 Jews in the town who were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps. Fifteen of them survived, which I find amazingly high given how early in the war this happened.
Here is the actual submersion part viewed from above:
We spent a long time at the Historical Museum of the Rhineland-Pfalz, a local history museum. There was a large, detailed and very interesting exhibit on Richard the Lionhearted, who spent time in Speyer while he was being held for ransom on his return from the Third Crusade. (One of the "cuter" parts was a display of his travels from England and back as a series of tweets superimposed on a map). As Jay said "I didn't expect to go to a quaint town in Germany to get updated on British history". My German is now good enough that I can understand about 90% of the information on museum placards, which enabled me to get a lot more information from the exhibit than Jay did.
There is also a Transportation Museum in Speyer. We didn't pace ourselves well enough to find time to visit this (its hours in the winter are limited, and we got engrossed in Richard the Lionhearted exhibit), but we walked around the outside, where you can see everything from firetrucks to space shuttles. The largest item (that we saw) is a 747. Apparently there is everything you ever wanted to know about vehicles there.
Early Sunday morning it snowed, making our trip back a bit more of an adventure (walking to the train station through the snow -- about 1-2"; a bit of concern about delayed connections, but it all worked out). It was damn cold out both Saturday and Sunday and windy too, at least for us in our inadequate winter clothing.
A nice, relaxing weekend. Even with the cold, it was probably nicer weather than Duisburg, and we took in a lot of history.
Friday, March 16, 2018
Random observations on German culture
We are off to the German town of Speyer, a Roman and medieval city south of here. It is supposed to be lovely and quite romantic. I will report back after the weekend. Hopefully, I will get some good pictures.
Some random things I have noticed about the Germans and my adaptation to Germany:
Some random things I have noticed about the Germans and my adaptation to Germany:
- The Germans are serious bicyclists/bike commuters. When I was out in the rain, I saw just as many people on bikes as on a more pleasant day. (There are, of course, plenty of cars). I've become a serious user of my bike at home for running errands, but I would have been in a car that day. I see them riding after dark a lot too. Of course, part of it is that most streets have bike lanes that are separated from the cars (by a curb and often parking) and at least visually separated from pedestrians, so it's a lot safer to ride in the rain. I'm also seeing more cyclists with helmets than I have before.
- I really appreciate the way the Germans do their beds. Just a fitted bottom sheet and then a duvet with a cover (that you change with the other sheet). A two person bed is two relatively narrow twin mattresses put in a single frame, and each gets their own bottom sheet and own duvet. You make the bed by folding the duvet in half and putting it the "wrong" way over the bottom sheet. Takes about 10 seconds. Of course, changing the duvet cover is not easy, though maybe it is for an experienced German :-) And apparently ironed bedcovers are important enough to Germans that we get clean and ironed sheets every two weeks in the guest house. I could get used to that.
- On the other hand, German pillows make no sense to me. They are big squares -- close to twice the size of a typical US pillow. While I am sure we have cheap pillows here in the guest house, even in hotels they are simply cotton bats and very soft. I think the idea is that you scrunch them into the shape you need for your way of sleeping (they definitely can be folded in half and maybe in quarters if that works for you). I want support in my pillow.
- It's really easy to get used to having some sort of breakfast pastry. This year, even with the cold, I've been going to the bakery before breakfast, to get them fresher (they and the dinner rolls - brötchen -- go stale quickly), and the line is long, with all the Germans who need their breakfast fix and their daily bread. The idea of a store where the typical purchase is only 1-2 Euro seems undoable in the US, but there are bakeries everywhere, even though many of them have been taken over by chains that bake centrally and just transport the stuff to the individual stores -- maybe for the final 5 minutes of baking.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
A Day in the Life...
Today was a rainy day, so I tried to stay inside as much as possible. I didn't have a German lesson, so I originally planned to go hiking in the local woods, but I'm a rain wimp. Just to give you an idea of what a "quiet, stay at home day" looks like for me here (remember, we are car-less), here's a summary:
- get up, shower and dress
- go down to common room to start a load of laundry
- head to bakery to get fresh pastry for breakfast (our major indulgence here, but you have to go every day for bread or pastries, as they go stale fast)
- deal with laundry load
- eat breakfast
- start a second load of laundry
- it's raining pretty hard, so read email, catch up on various internet things
- write Hamburg blog post
- eat lunch (leftover spicy cabbage over leftover pasta)
- rain is letting up, head to the vegetable vendor for dinner supplies
- bring that back, head out again to the grocery store
- bring that back, dry off, contact Jay to see if he wants a break, go together to the wine store to replenish our wine supply
- do German homework
- make dinner (sausages, mushrooms, onions and peppers over polenta)
- enjoy a downloaded TV show and discover I still have time for this blog post before I go to bed.
Most days I have more errands (or at least errands that are further way, like dealing with train tickets) than today. I "only" got 19,000 steps which is a little more than 8 miles, including traipsing up and down the stairs to do laundry.
And we wonder why Americans tend to be heavier than Europeans.
Weekend in Hamburg
We spent our first weekend during this trip in Hamburg, visiting the daughter of our Oldenburg friends (she spent a year at Stanford while in school, where she spent quite a bit of time with us). She's a doctor, at the level I think we would call a resident (the German system is quite different, with students starting med school right out of high school), becoming an anesthesiologist/ intensive care specialist/ (maybe) palliative care specialist (in the German system these are all subspecialities of anesthesiology). We wanted to catch up on her life and also see a bit of Hamburg (we last visited her and the city three years ago).
We were rewarded with a weekend of rain (and it wasn't even raining in Duisburg, where our apartment is -- the unfairness of it all!). That didn't stop us from wandering around the Außenalster (a lake about 6km circumference) and into downtown (thank god for Germans being really into coffee shops and other places to warm up in) and then along the Reeperbahn (a long street by the harbor, which is an interesting combination of night clubs, restaurants, and sex shops) and finally to the St. Michaelis church (the best known, and very well preserved, church in Hamburg) The highlight was visiting the Elbphilharmonie, a brand new, very distinctive concert hall, that's becoming a city landmark and place that people come from all over Europe to visit. It was nearly a decade late and had huge cost overruns, but the current concensus is that it was worth it. Given the dreariness of the day, none of my pictures are worth sharing, but here is a view off the internet (that was definitely taken from a boat in the harbor, which I also didn't have access to).
It's meant to look like a wave. You can walk around on a deck at the level where the brown concrete meets the glass section. In addition to at least two concert halls (we weren't able to go inside them -- it appeared that you needed to book a guided tour to do that), the usual cafes, there is also a very pricey hotel in the building -- the ideal place to stay if you travel across Germany for a concert. Unfortunately, you have to book concert tickets about six months in advance, so we weren't able to attend any concerts. Our friend had gotten special "locals" tickets when it first opened, and saw a Yoyo Ma concert there. She thought the acoustics were fantastic.
My fitbit told me I got 33 000 steps that day (almost all of it in the rain), so it was a long day.
We also got to experience a couple of very nice restaurants and a night club. Friday night we went to Hunter's Bar and Grill, a South African steak place (is there even one South African restaurant in all of the Bay Area? Probably, but I don't know where it might be). The South Africans know their meat and know how to season it. They are a grilling culture. I had a shrimp curry that was excellent and Jay had the advertised steak. One oddity. In a place with an English name, there were no English menus -- the standard menu was in Afrikaans and German.
Saturdat night we went to the restaurant in the Hotel east. The room has won design awards (as you can see from the picture below). Very hip, but also excellent food, including some very good sushi and sashimi. After some sushi appetizers, we all had the salmon. Our friend thought it might be wild caught Atlantic salmon, which you never get in the US.
We ended up at the Skyline Bar 20up on the 20th floor of another hotel. We were early (9:30), so the crowd was an interesting mix of near-teens and over 50s; we fit right in. The views of the harbor were gorgeous, even with the serious cloud cover. The shipping docks are automated enough that they operate all night, so there was a lot of activity. Our friend sent us home on the U-bahn so that she could party the rest of the night (ah, youth).
A nice breakfast at our hotel, a train ride home (of course, the sun came out as we headed for the train station), and a simple dinner at home to end the weekend.
We were rewarded with a weekend of rain (and it wasn't even raining in Duisburg, where our apartment is -- the unfairness of it all!). That didn't stop us from wandering around the Außenalster (a lake about 6km circumference) and into downtown (thank god for Germans being really into coffee shops and other places to warm up in) and then along the Reeperbahn (a long street by the harbor, which is an interesting combination of night clubs, restaurants, and sex shops) and finally to the St. Michaelis church (the best known, and very well preserved, church in Hamburg) The highlight was visiting the Elbphilharmonie, a brand new, very distinctive concert hall, that's becoming a city landmark and place that people come from all over Europe to visit. It was nearly a decade late and had huge cost overruns, but the current concensus is that it was worth it. Given the dreariness of the day, none of my pictures are worth sharing, but here is a view off the internet (that was definitely taken from a boat in the harbor, which I also didn't have access to).
It's meant to look like a wave. You can walk around on a deck at the level where the brown concrete meets the glass section. In addition to at least two concert halls (we weren't able to go inside them -- it appeared that you needed to book a guided tour to do that), the usual cafes, there is also a very pricey hotel in the building -- the ideal place to stay if you travel across Germany for a concert. Unfortunately, you have to book concert tickets about six months in advance, so we weren't able to attend any concerts. Our friend had gotten special "locals" tickets when it first opened, and saw a Yoyo Ma concert there. She thought the acoustics were fantastic.
My fitbit told me I got 33 000 steps that day (almost all of it in the rain), so it was a long day.
We also got to experience a couple of very nice restaurants and a night club. Friday night we went to Hunter's Bar and Grill, a South African steak place (is there even one South African restaurant in all of the Bay Area? Probably, but I don't know where it might be). The South Africans know their meat and know how to season it. They are a grilling culture. I had a shrimp curry that was excellent and Jay had the advertised steak. One oddity. In a place with an English name, there were no English menus -- the standard menu was in Afrikaans and German.
Saturdat night we went to the restaurant in the Hotel east. The room has won design awards (as you can see from the picture below). Very hip, but also excellent food, including some very good sushi and sashimi. After some sushi appetizers, we all had the salmon. Our friend thought it might be wild caught Atlantic salmon, which you never get in the US.
We ended up at the Skyline Bar 20up on the 20th floor of another hotel. We were early (9:30), so the crowd was an interesting mix of near-teens and over 50s; we fit right in. The views of the harbor were gorgeous, even with the serious cloud cover. The shipping docks are automated enough that they operate all night, so there was a lot of activity. Our friend sent us home on the U-bahn so that she could party the rest of the night (ah, youth).
A nice breakfast at our hotel, a train ride home (of course, the sun came out as we headed for the train station), and a simple dinner at home to end the weekend.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Back in Germany again
After nine months of silence on this blog, we are back in Germany again. We've been here for a week, and will stay until the Thursday before Easter, when we go first to London and then to Italy.
I didn't post anything the first week, because we didn't have working internet in our apartment until Friday and then we left for a weekend in Hamburg. So here is a short summary of our adventures in the first week.
We weren't off to a running start, with broken internet (the router needed to be reset, but it wasn't a user accessible function) and no light in the kitchen. Since sunset is about 5:30 here, it's a little hard to make dinner in a dark kitchen. We repurposed a bed lamp, but it hasn't been great. Finally we got the guy who does these things in today (he wasn't responding to mail last week -- he arrived to fix it about 20 minutes after we left for the weekend, but wouldn't come into the apartment without permission, sigh). Today he replaced the broken undercounter light, but the above stove light apparently was disconnected because it is a shock hazard, and they will have to special order a new one (they apparently don't make this one any more). If you want to take odds on whether it will arrive before we leave, you need to know that I'm taking the "No" side.
I've been off doing my usual errands -- grocery shopping, laundry (Jay was in Vals d'Isere skiing for a week, so he had accumulated a lot of laundry), looking for random housewares, getting train tickets. (We are now officially "real Germans". We decided that there was never enough space on the common room clothes drying racks, so we bought our own. Now our apartment looks like a typical German one, with clean clothes drying in the living room :-)
Today I had my second encounter with the German police system (regular readers of this blog will remember I got my purse stolen a few visits ago). I was walking along, somewhat lost in thought, looking at two guys in motorcycle leathers standing by their bikes. Didn't pay attention to the words on their jackets. It was time to cross this little residential street that had a traffic light, and there was no traffic, so across I went, not even noticing the light. Turns out these guys were cops, and they were rather offended that I would cross against a light right in front of them. No chance of a warning (should have tried to play the "little old lady" card, but not sure it would have worked). They asked for a credit/debit card and charged me 5 euros on the spot. At least it was a lot cheaper than it would have been in the US, though I'm trying to think if I have ever heard of anyone ever being stopped for jaywalking in the US for anything but crossing a multi-lane, very busy street.
I did not think to ask to have my picture taken with these guys. Sorry, folks.
I have resumed my German lessons. Tonight's homework is to make up punchlines to a set of jokes I have been given. The jokes are understandable -- they don't depend on word play or cultural oddities -- but you try to think up punchlines to jokes in English.
I'll cover Hamburg in the next post.
I didn't post anything the first week, because we didn't have working internet in our apartment until Friday and then we left for a weekend in Hamburg. So here is a short summary of our adventures in the first week.
We weren't off to a running start, with broken internet (the router needed to be reset, but it wasn't a user accessible function) and no light in the kitchen. Since sunset is about 5:30 here, it's a little hard to make dinner in a dark kitchen. We repurposed a bed lamp, but it hasn't been great. Finally we got the guy who does these things in today (he wasn't responding to mail last week -- he arrived to fix it about 20 minutes after we left for the weekend, but wouldn't come into the apartment without permission, sigh). Today he replaced the broken undercounter light, but the above stove light apparently was disconnected because it is a shock hazard, and they will have to special order a new one (they apparently don't make this one any more). If you want to take odds on whether it will arrive before we leave, you need to know that I'm taking the "No" side.
I've been off doing my usual errands -- grocery shopping, laundry (Jay was in Vals d'Isere skiing for a week, so he had accumulated a lot of laundry), looking for random housewares, getting train tickets. (We are now officially "real Germans". We decided that there was never enough space on the common room clothes drying racks, so we bought our own. Now our apartment looks like a typical German one, with clean clothes drying in the living room :-)
Today I had my second encounter with the German police system (regular readers of this blog will remember I got my purse stolen a few visits ago). I was walking along, somewhat lost in thought, looking at two guys in motorcycle leathers standing by their bikes. Didn't pay attention to the words on their jackets. It was time to cross this little residential street that had a traffic light, and there was no traffic, so across I went, not even noticing the light. Turns out these guys were cops, and they were rather offended that I would cross against a light right in front of them. No chance of a warning (should have tried to play the "little old lady" card, but not sure it would have worked). They asked for a credit/debit card and charged me 5 euros on the spot. At least it was a lot cheaper than it would have been in the US, though I'm trying to think if I have ever heard of anyone ever being stopped for jaywalking in the US for anything but crossing a multi-lane, very busy street.
I did not think to ask to have my picture taken with these guys. Sorry, folks.
I have resumed my German lessons. Tonight's homework is to make up punchlines to a set of jokes I have been given. The jokes are understandable -- they don't depend on word play or cultural oddities -- but you try to think up punchlines to jokes in English.
I'll cover Hamburg in the next post.
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