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Reflections on America

Posted on August 15th, 2010 by Retired-Ed in Travel

Well, I’m in my house in Germany now. At least for now. I leave tomorrow (Monday) for 3 days for my part-time job. I’m a TAP Trainer. That’s Transition Assistance Program, and I give training to soldiers who are about to enter the civilian job market. Now there’s a scary idea in these times! Anyway, I’ll be in a different part of Bavaria until Thursday evening. After 3 months of not training, it took a bit of study to bring myself back up to speed. I believe firmly in the “5 P principle”. No, that’s not what you do after drinking 2 liters of beer at the local Gasthaus. That stands for “Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance”. I’ll be teaching that beginning on Tuesday, and I thought I should model that behavior myself. Ergo, I’ve been going over the material for the past two days.

The Queen and I got back earlier this week after seven weeks in the US of A. It’s always nice to be “home”, but I look at America through the eyes of a visitor most of the time. Here are some of my observations:

America as the land of round door knobs is becoming a myth. Yes, it’s long been a running joke among us ex-pats that America is the land of round door knobs. I think that that used to be the case. I remember growing up in a house with round door knobs. I went to school in a building with round door knobs. I worked in factories and stores with round door knobs. Even my first job as a teacher was in a building with round door knobs. But this time, I noticed that many buildings, including the condo that we rented for the summer, had levers of the catch and rip variety….just like we have in Europe. America is becoming globalized. Well, at least in the area of door knobs. Here’s a question for you: if it’s a lever, is it still called a door knob?

The newspaper classified ad section was full of foreclosure announcements….every damn day. It was depressing. Page after page of announcements of “sheriff’s sales” to sell homes on which  people could no longer afford to pay the mortgage. There are probably some bargains to be had if one has the capital to dabble in the real estate market.

On a related note, I noticed so very many empty storefronts. The malls especially were noteworthy. Where there used to be stores, the doorways were blocked off and there was no business there. One mall in Austin where we visited was in dire straits. The hair salon where the Queen and I get our hair done (well, I get mine cut. She gets hers sculpted) will be moving from Highland Mall to Lakeline Mall by the time that we visit again. There’s just no business for that place in NE Austin. Scary!

One thing was still a constant. Lots of good Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants are still around and apparently making a go of it. Thank goodness for that. We love Papasito’s in Austin and Pueblo Nuevo in Florissant, MO. Or is it in Hazelwood on that part of Lindbergh Blvd.? Not to worry. The food tastes good no matter which town in which it resides.

We ate a lot, and both of us gained weight. Now I’ll have to work hard at taking it off again. Once my 3 days of training are completed this week, I plan to get back on the walking paths every day. The blister that I developed on my foot (and thereby sidelining me) has healed and I think I’m good to go.

Thanks to Facebook, I made contact with several friends from high school (can you believe that we are all in our mid-60s now????) Gosh it seems like only yesterday that we were cruising the streets of Springfield, Ill, and terrorizing our teachers. Now many of us are retired teachers and have many memories to enjoy. I got to my hometown for just one night and had a great time reminiscing with some old friends. Some of then are very old, but don’t tell them I said that.

We visited the house that we own, and the Queen informed me that she hates that house and doesn’t want to live there. Let’s see….the market is down and we won’t be able to sell it for even what we paid for it. Does this sound like a good thing to spring on me now? I thought that she might want to buy a place in Austin, but she hates Austin because of the heat. Our friends want us to move to Tennessee. But I think it gets hot there too. I did enjoy visiting Nashville again. We saw the Country Music Hall of Fame. Got to see Elvis’ gold Cadillac. I think I saw him there, but I’m not certain. I know that I saw him a few weeks before we left, and he was driving an Audi at 150 mph on the Autobahn here in Germany. He looked older.

I’ll save more reflections for a time when I can give full attention to spending time 24/7 with one’s spouse. I go back to work this week. She goes back to work the following week. I’m sure that we’ll both be pleased.

Retired-Ed

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WM Fever

Posted on June 22nd, 2010 by Retired-Ed in Daily Life, Travel

In Germany the World Cup is known as the Weltmeisterschaft, or simply abbreviated as WM. Let me tell you, it’s a big deal here. It may be no bigger than the Super Bowl, but that’s arguable. The difference is that the World Cup lasts so much longer than the Super Bowl, even counting the ridiculous hype that goes on for two weeks prior to the Super Bowl. Here, it’s a national team playing (just as it is in every other country in the Cup quest), and one sees evidence of national pride everywhere.

In the US, we are accustomed to seeing American flags flying on many public buildings and even at many people’s homes. While one does see the German flag at some public buildings on a daily basis, it is not as prevalent as in the USA. Except for football Cup quests, such as the current World Cup or the European Cup that was held a couple of years ago. It’s kinda cool to see ordinary people flying German flags from their cars or having the flag hanging from their balcony. The whole country gets excited about it. I wonder how many people “call in sick” on days when the German team is playing. I watched their previous two games, and I can only imagine what happens when the whistle blows for intermission (or what we could call “halftime”). I think that every toilet in Germany flushes in unison. There are no breaks in soccer (or Fussball, as it is known here), so fans have to wait for the only natural break in order to trot off to the bathroom.

The German team plays tomorrow, as does the US team, and I will miss both games. I’ll be flying to the US for vacation. So let me say, “Go Germany! and Go USA!” I’ll root for both teams until they have to play each other. Then I will have to wear my red, white, and blue instead of the black, red, and yellow of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. If both teams advance, and that’s not a certainty for either team, it is possible that they will play each other in their next match.  The Germans have to play without one of their stars in the game tomorrow. Miroslav Klose (yes, he plays on the GERMAN team) will have to sit it out due to getting a red card in the last game. All in all, it should be interesting. The German team won it all in 1990 and we really enjoyed the fireworks when that happened. I am talking about real fireworks, not burning cars and shooting at policemen. I’m sure that there will be plenty of noise from the vuvuzelas tomorrow during the game. I’m talking about here in Germany, not just at the stadium in South Africa. Those damn horns are sold here for about €1.80 and lots of kids have them. As I write this, the neighbor kid is blowing his outside of his house. Hmm, I wonder how stupid he would look with that horn sticking of his …… oh, never mind.

Yes, we board the plane tomorrow if there is no problems with the aircraft, the airline (United), or some volcanic eruption in Iceland. With any luck, we’ll be in St. Louis by Wednesday night and maybe I can catch a Cardinal game on TV. I’m definitely NOT looking forward to the heat and humidity in St. Louis or anywhere in the Midwest. Today, the temperature when I woke up was 6 degrees Celsius, or about 42 F. The gate guard at the base was wearing a heavy jacket and gloves. I said to him, “You know this is summertime, right?” His answer was on the lips of many people right now, “This is crazy weather.” But I’ll take this over the oppressive heat any day.

Well, my next post will be from the United States. Please check back for the story of our flight, and let’s hope that there really is no story to tell!

Retired-Ed

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Heaven on Earth

Posted on April 25th, 2010 by Retired-Ed in Travel

Editor’s note from Retired-Ed. I don’t know why the formatting looks perfect when I draft a post and is not at all what it is supposed to be when I publish the post. I apologize for the formatting of the pictures and the lack of word-wrap around the photos. I will have to research why this occurs. Any ideas?

If there is such a place, I believe that we have found it. For spring break, the Queen and I took a 6-day trip to the south. We started by going to Oberammergau, Germany, the location of the decennial Passion Play. Although we hadn’t originally planned to view the play, we changed our minds. If we can still get tickets (our innkeeper is working on it for us….he plays the High Priest this time), we plan to attend over Labor Day weekend. Oberammergau is always pretty, and I have many pictures from previous trips. Here is a photo from our one night there this spring.

After leaving Oberammergau, we drove to Bolzano, Italy, to see “Ötzi” or “The Iceman”. He is a mummy that was discovered in the Alps about 20 years ago. Perfectly preserved in the ice, he is now on display in a museum in Bolzano (or “Bozen” if you speak German). Photography is not permitted in the museum, but I can tell you that it is very well done, and the artifacts of the era are very interesting. The speculation about how he died, what he ate, and how he lived captured my attention. We had not been to Bolzano before, and it is a very nice-looking city. Bolzano is in the “Südtirol” or South Tirol, which makes it really more Austrian than Italian. I heard a lot of German being spoken and many of the signs are in both languages. I took only a few pictures during our very short time there, but there was a very interesting church.  The roof had a unique finish to it, as I hope you can see.

From Bolzano, we made a quick trip to Vicenza, the home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the Southern European Task Force, in order to get authorization for and to buy coupons for tax-free gasoline while we were in Italy. We saved a few bucks by doing so. I took no pictures there, and we quickly headed out for Desenzano, on the shores of Lake Garda, for our second overnight. We have been to Garda before, and we only spent one night there.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t listening or I wasn’t aware that the Queen wanted fish, and I drove to a restaurant in a reconverted barn, way out in the country. We had been there before, but the Queen reminded me that things are never the same the second time around. The Cascina della Taverna is very popular with the locals (it was packed), but obviously not with visiting royalty. I won’t make that mistake again. However, if you are interested, the restaurant has its own page on Facebook and has many fans. Can you guess that the food was not fish, but meat? Check out the picture. The food is cooked over an open hearth. There is no menu.You eat what they cook. Wine and beer are readily available. Again and again. Ah, yes, Italian wines. They made the whole sorry experience tolerable.

In fact, the next day we stopped at a winery and loaded up the car with Lugana wine, a specialty of the area. Little did we know then that we would find yet another favorite wine later in the day. After the Lake Garda area, we went to our main location, Bellagio, on Lake Como in the Lombardy region of Italy. This is the Heaven on Earth that I spoke of. The picture at the right was taken from a ferry as we crossed from Bellagio to Cadenabbia on the west leg of the lake. The picture at the left was taken from our hotel room balcony. Bellagio sits at the tip of a peninsula that divides the lake into three legs. There’s a north leg, an east leg, and a west leg.

Words cannot describe the beauty of this place. In the morning, lying in bed, we could look out and see the sunrise over the mountaintops. At night, the lights of the villages ringed the lake and made for an idyllic setting. We had planned to go to Turin and view the Shroud on Wednesday, but the thought of traveling all day to get there, view the Shroud, and then return, made us think that we’d rather view the scenery around Bellagio. And that’s what we did. So don’t expect a report on the Shroud of Turin in this space. Regretfully (maybe a little), that won’t happen. But because we did stay in the area, we got to visit the Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo, on the western leg of the lake. I took about 100 photos in the garden and here are just a few of them. I have posted more pictures on my Facebook page, and I invite you to view them there.


These three pictures cannot begin to describe the floral beauty of the garden. We will have to go back there to take in more of it. There was even a bamboo garden, some waterfalls, beautiful flower gardens, trees, and rock formations.

On our way home, we spent the night in Garmisch, Germany, a frequent haunt of ours. We dined at a favorite restaurant, Bollywood, on Indian food, and it was one of the best meals of the trip. And that’s saying something, because the Italian food was excellent. I have not been much of a fan of Italian food, but I am getting converted! I really enjoyed it.

When we left Garmisch, we got routed through Steingaden, which is the location of the famous Church in the Meadow, or Wieskirche. After I posted several pics to Facebook, one of my friends told me that you aren’t supposed to take pictures in that church. I didn’t see any signs to that effect, and almost everyone was snapping away with their cameras. This church is one of the foremost examples of Rococo architecture in this part of Germany. You can find more pictures on my Facebook page, but here are three for you to enjoy.


We had to drive fast to get home, as the Queen was suffering from a sinus infection the entire time and I had made a doctor appointment for her at 5:30 pm on the day we got back. Normally, that would not have been a problem, but traffic was brutal. We got back with about 15 minutes to spare. After her appointment, we rushed to the Apotheke (pharmacy) and got there just 5 minutes before closing. We lucked out.

And we lucked out on this trip. It was probably the best one that we have taken in a long time. Bellagio is a place that we will plan to return to at some time. Please check out the pics on my Facebook page if you enjoyed these. Until next time, when I will report on my new job that I started last week.

Retired-Ed

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Snow…an Explanation…Snow…a Proposal

Posted on February 14th, 2010 by Retired-Ed in Travel, politics

It’s still snowing in my little Dorf here in Germany. Not to imply that our problems can even begin to approach what the mid-Atlantic states are experiencing in the US. However, we may be better equipped to handle the problem here, because we’re used to snow. Our communities have snow plows! Sometimes they even have salt to spread on the roads, but this year’s problems with lack of salt seems to be a new phenomenon. I have already shoveled once this morning around 0700, and it’s now 1000 and I need to shovel again. I’m not even bothering with trying to clear out a path for my car. My beloved BMW may have given up the ghost. While driving on the Autobahn yesterday, some young lady (around 2o, I would guess) decided that she wanted to pass the truck in front of her. Never mind that I was already passing both of the vehicles at around 90 mph. She was driving a Smart Car, but that didn’t make her smart. She didn’t even know I  was there, and she pulled out right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, skidded, and miraculously avoided a collision. Don’t ask me how. I flashed my lights a few times at her, but she seemed oblivious. She’s an obliviot, to borrow a word from one of my favorite bloggers, Randy Cassingham. So, there was no damage to either vehicle. Or so I thought. Immediately, my car began to vibrate. I thought that maybe I had lost a weight from one of the tires, and the wheel was out of balance. I especially thought that when the vibration stopped at certain speeds. But alas! The vibration is coming from the engine. I’m hoping that it’s something as simple as a bad spark plug, but how would that be caused by a quick braking on the Autobahn? I’ll take it to the shop on Monday, unless Monday turns out to be a holiday (it’s Rosenmontag and some communities declare it to be a holiday). Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I have been absent from the blogosphere lately. I’ve still been here, but my computer has been busy. I have been getting a little nervous about the possibility of a hard drive crash or some other malady that might affect my computer. So I decided to try Carbonite, the online backup system. It will back up your most valuable files such as photos, documents, emails, and music for a flat rate of $55 per year. I figured that it was money well spent for the peace of mind. You get a 15 day free trial when you sign up. During the trial, the program will back up your files….all except for your music. That took 8 days! After I decided to purchase the subscription, the program began to back up my music files. I had no idea that I had so much music on my computer! That took 10 days. Subsequent backups will only take a few minutes. I’m satisfied with the program. If you think that you’d be interested, please contact me and I’ll send you a referral. The cost is the same, but I will get some extra months on my subscription for the referral. Thanks.

OK, so that explains where I have been. With the backup in progress, all of my other online activities were degraded. We already have a very slow DSL connection here. It seems that Germany has fast and half-fast DSL connections. You’re stuck with whatever lines your community has. My village has half-fast DSL. Yes, I know how that word sounds, and the pun is definitely intentional. I even had to pause my backups so that the Queen could download her TV shows from iTunes. But I seem to be back in business now.

It appears that our nation’s capital (I’m American, so I speak of Washington, DC) has been paralyzed by several feet of snow. Now, not to make light of their situation, but I can think of 535 morons on Capitol Hill that have been paralyzed for a long time. And that doesn’t even include the White House. No, that’s not a political statement; there are fools in every administration. However, I’m still waiting for Rahm Emanuel (or someone even higher) to blame the snowfall on Bush. But I digress.

In a city that is totally unprepared for snow, the government was closed for 4 days last week. Even a half inch of the white stuff seems to trigger government closures. What are they doing with over 2 feet of snow? Wow! Not ready for all of that. So I have a proposal, as radical as it seems. This is actually only partly tongue-in-cheek. It’s time to think about moving our capital to someplace that can cope. Washington has become a political cesspool, and moving outside the Beltway…WAY outside the Beltway…may be the solution. Maybe we could leave the lobbyists, the political hacks, the “consultants”, the morons, and those in the federal workforce who are more interested in a paycheck instead of public service (and there are a few of these people!) behind.

Where to go? I have two cities in mind, but I dismiss one of them for obvious reasons. My first thought was Chicago. Now they know snow! But Chicago also knows all about corrupt politics. The city that gave us Anton Cermak, Rod Blagojevich, Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel, and, yes, our current president, probably would not be the ideal place to re-plant the nation’s government. Anyway, Congress would be divided between Cubs fans and White Sox fans, and they’d never get any work done.

My suggestion is Minneapolis. It’s a wonderful city that can cope with the snow, and can probably even cope with the snow job that politics would produce. It has an international airport and also the Mall of America. It has a major league baseball team and an NFL football team. It even has Bret Favre, who is old enough to remember when the Washington Monument was first built. Oh, it would be expensive. New buildings would have to be constructed, but think of the jobs that that project would generate. Sven and Oly would not have any trouble finding construction work. And Garrison Keillor would find plenty to talk about on his radio show “A Prairie Home Companion”. It’s on Public Radio, which would probably send the Republicans into a tizzy, but he’s funny. Why, Minneapolis even has skyways that allow one to walk from building to building about about the 3rd story level (if I remember correctly) to avoid having to slosh through the snow at street level.

And it is used to snow jobs. The city ignores them. An ideal location, eh?

Retired-Ed

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Das Ende der Weinstrasse (The end of the wine road)

Posted on October 20th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Travel

Over the past weekend, I made two blog posts about our trip to the German Wine Road over the previous three-day weekend. Today will mark the final entry chronicling that trip. The weekend “had its moments” because it seemed that almost every community was having a “Weinfest” (wine festival). Normally, these are good times and everyone has fun. However, when you are traveling and trying to cram as much into about 48 hours as you can, taking the time to look for a parking place can be frustrating. But that wasn’t the case in every community we visited. Here, for example, is a picture of some people enjoying music, wine, beer, and good eats. The Queen and I decided to sit and enjoy the local musicians. From the picture, you can see that the sun was shining brightly in a blue sky. Not five minutes later, the clouds rolled in and the rain began. We hightailed it back to our car to decide if we wanted to wait it out or not. While sitting in our car, a German man came up to me and asked if I planned to stay or leave. He would like my parking place if we were going to leave. Since he was so nice about it, and being the good neighbors that we are (or at least try to be), we pulled out of the parking lot for our next adventure. The band shown in this picture is typical of such bands all over the country. They play at fests and Christmas Markets. We always enjoy them. If I weren’t diabetic, I would be enjoying them with a mug of Glühwein, but it’s too sweet for me to enjoy.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Weinstrasse runs from Bockenheim to the French border. You have seen the gate at Bockenheim marking the beginning of the road. Near the end is the Deutsche Wein Tor, or the German Wine Gate. This gate is very close to the German/French border and gave us a reason to stop and take more pictures. Evidently at one time, cars could pass through the gate and continue on into France. Today, however, one must drive around the area. There was a small park with some antique implements formerly used in harvesting the grapes and making wine to be displayed. The pictures below will give you an idea of how things were done there in the past.

Nowadays, vintners use metal barrels or casks in many cases. But there is something to be said for the flavor of the wood that is imparted to the wine when it is stored in a wooden barrel.

We saw a great many churches on the trip. The grotto at left was found embedded in the side of a church in Deidesheim. I have shown pictures of a couple of churches in the previous posts. One that we saw at the end of our trip was in the town of Frankenstein. Yes, that Frankenstein. We went there deliberately because of the castle that is there. Supposedly, this castle was visited by Mary Shelley and was the inspiration for her book. On the other hand, there is also a castle near Darmstadt that claims to be the Frankenstein castle. I’ll leave it to your imagination to sort it out. The picture at right is of the church in Frankenstein. Yes, the town really is named “Frankenstein”, as the sign at left will signify.

As we entered the town, I was trying to watch the road, watch for other drivers and also look for a castle. Had the Queen not been with me, I would have certainly missed it. The castle sits high on a hill which was only visible from the passenger side of the car. Maybe if I had had the sun roof open I might have seen it, but again, I was trying to drive. She told me to turn around so I could see it as well. We were lucky to find a small parking lot where I could stop and take the picture of the castle shown at the right. I wonder if I would have had a creepy feeling if I could have gotten closer to the castle. Maybe next time we’ll see if we can go to the top.

At the beginning of the wine road, there was an “international traffic sign” that was not in my study guide when I got my German drivers license. I doubt if it is in anyone’s study guide, but it leaves little doubt as to its meaning. I just hope that the sign is not an editorial comment on my blogging ability. You be the judge.

Dog poo
Dog poo

That’s it for the Weinstrasse Reise (Wine Road Trip). See you next time.

Retired-Ed

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Weinstrasse Revisited

Posted on October 17th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Travel

Yesterday I started to report on our trip to the Deutsche Weinstrasse. After posting that entry, I heard from one of my critics (the Queen). She said that I alluded to meals but didn’t say anything about them. Also, she was concerned that the picture of the Bockenheim church didn’t give the reader enough of an idea of just how “medieval” the steeple looked unless someone clicked on the picture to enlarge it. Well, to appease the woman that I have to live with, here is a picture of that steeple:

Unfortunately, a microwave antenna and a tree will block your view of this steeple, but you can still click on it and get a good idea of what it looks like. We only had two evening meals on this trip, and the first one was, regretfully, at a Chinese buffet, the only place where we could find parking at 8:30 at night after looking for hours along the road. The food in the area is very similar to the cuisine of Alsace, the French region along the German border. We’ve had Alsatian food before and liked it. (They love their sauer kraut and what the Germans call Flammkuchen…but for the life of me, I can’t remember the French word for that item). We ate in our hotel restaurant on Sunday evening and had a delightful meal. There was only one other table occupied by diners. That was obviously a “girls’ night out”, and I use the term “girl” in its most inclusive meaning. Some of them were probably my age, and that’s old. They sure were having fun! The Queen wanted to have broccoli soup, which is one of her favorites. Unfortunately, the server came and apologized that they were out of it. So instead, the Queen got potato soup with blood sausage. Doesn’t sound all that exciting, but I had a taste, and it was very good.

So the above ought to appease my travel companion. Now back to what we saw. I showed some old-time wine barrels in my last post. How about the largest winebarrel in the world, as found in Bad Dürkheim? This behemoth is not used for wine, but serves as a tourist attraction. Note that it’s capacity is over 1 million liters. Many wine shops will have the saying “In Vino Veritas” ( In wine is truth) posted somewhere on their premises. At one location, this barrelhead embedded in their wall gave a unique opportunity to display that slogan. And some fool had to stand right in front of it to have his picture taken by the Queen. Note just how well-dressed this government retiree is. And you need to know that this picture was taken before I had sampled any wine!

Once inside a winery, the proprietors are more than happy to let you sample their various wines, and their selection is unbelievable. Reds, whites, sparkling wines, dry, semi-dry, sweet…you name it and they have it. We prefer dry whites, and the Queen also likes some rosés. We were able to find many suitable opportunities and took advantage of most of them! I had some trouble loading the trunk! On the left, you’ll see a picture of one of the wineries that we visited. This proprietor spoke English very well. Originally, the Queen opted to stay in the car, because we had been at that shop the day before and she didn’t think that she’d see anything different. But the day before, there was a different salesperson who only spoke German (the Queen’s German is not as good as I pretend that mine is). So when I told the guy on Sunday that I wanted to have my wife hear his explanations, he asked me where she was. When I said, “In the car,” he laughed and said that we were not in an Arab country, and women were welcome in his store. “Go get her!” was his direction to me.

Many of the stores, like this one, had signs that hearken back to a much earlier time. One is reminded of what these shops must have looked like in the 13th or 14th centuries. Some of the locations boast that a winery has been on that location for that long!

One town along the Wine Road is Deidesheim, which captured our attention for quite some time. On the left is a picture of the town center.  The large building is the Deidesheimer Hof, which is a hotel in the town. Hof basically means a large yard or open area, so the hotel is named for its location. And, although you can’t see it very well in the photo on the left, there is an added attraction in the Hof. Check out the fountain in the photo on the right.

Certainly, some of the more striking scenes were of the architecture of some older houses. We stopped to refuel the car along the way (we are required to use Esso stations if we want to fill up with tax free gasoline, and believe me, we want to do that). We had to drive a few miles off of the wine road to find the Esso station (thank you, GPS), and as we were driving back, the Queen spied something and had me turn around to get a picture. The photo on the left shows a Fachwerk Haus, or half-timbered house. I think it was worth the time to double back and get the picture. We got to stay there a little longer, as a warning light came on in the car and I had to wait for the engine to cool a bit to check out the coolant level. As far as I could tell, it was a false alarm. The car is getting “up there” in years and mileage. It turned over 340,000 km while we were on the trip. That’s well over 200,000 miles, so I am holding my breath. But BMWs are supposedly built to last longer than that. I hope so.

That wasn’t the only cool house that we saw. Check out these houses below. I am no expert in history or architecture, but these have to be old and remind me of many mansions that we saw in England.


To paraphrase Robert Burns, “The best laid plans of mice, men and bloggers, gang aft agley.” I thought I could complete the reporting on the Weinstrasse with this post. However, there are still a few photos left, and it’s not nice to overwhelm (or underwhelm) your readers. I’ll save the rest for a subsequent post. But please visit again to see some of the final pictures.

Retired-Ed

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Deutsche Weinstrasse

Posted on October 16th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Travel

Over the long Columbus Day Holiday weekend, the Queen and I traveled the German Wine Road (or the Deutsche Weinstrasse). Although the weather varied from sunny to rainy, we did have a chance to check out many wineries and have a great time. We even had one or two memorable meals, but so many communities were having special celebrations, including Weinfests, that parking was a problem at many restaurants. One night we were forced to eat at a Chinese buffet. Wasn’t bad, but wasn’t exactly what we were looking for either.

I have posted several pictures on my Facebook page. Hopefully you can see them here, even if you aren’t a “friend” on Facebook. The first day was Saturday, and as we left our house, it appeared that we would have a gloomy day. But once we got to southwest Germany, things improved a bit. The road runs from Bockenheim south to the French border (or in the other direction, depending on your perspective). This gate, with its accompanying restaurant, marks the northern terminus of the wine road. The entire route is probably only about 50 miles or so, but there are wineries located all over the place. Each location offers a Wein Probe, or an opportunity to sample the wares before you buy. Wow, someone could really get drunk just sampling the various wines. They were delicious! We ended up buying several cases to bring home.

And if you turn around and look in the other direction, you get a view of this elegant church. It’s one of many along the German Wine Road. Churches, lovely community centers, wineries, and lots and lots of vineyards mark the way. Germany is mixed in its religious affiliations. There are many Catholic churches and many Protestant (or Evangelische) churches as well. We could call the Protestant churches “Lutheran”. I saw mostly Catholic churches, but I do remember one town showing the times of the church services on a sign as we entered the town, and the Protestant services were listed first. That often denotes the majority of that particular denomination in that town.

But what is the most obvious sight along the Weinstrasse? Of course, it’s the vineyards. Here are some photos of vineyards that you’ll see if you travel along the German Wine Road, including one with its own church in the vineyard.

And where is wine stored? In barrels, of course. Here is a picture of the past along the Weinstrasse. But today, modern equipment, like the wine press on the right, is the norm. Vintners use modern technology to make the best wine possible, but they must comply with government standards and European Union regulations. For example, a very popular sparking wine is called “Champagne”. I’ll bet you’ve heard of it, but only sparking wine from a special area in France can be called “Champagne”. Another sparking wine from Italy is called “Prosecco”. However, in Germany, a similar wine cannot be called Prosecco, because it is from Germany instead of Italy. We bought a case of “Rosesecco”, which is Prosecco with a little red wine to give it a blush.

As I said, the weather did not fully cooperate. We had storm clouds the entire time, but they were mingled with periods of sunshine. The picture on the right will give you an idea of what some of the day was like. But every cloud has some type of lining. Silver, is it? Not sure about that, but rainy days sometimes will produce scenes like the one on the left.

Well, there were so many sights to see, and so many wineries to report about, I’ll need to tell you about those in another post. Meanwhile, remember the saying, “In Vino Veritas”, and I’ll help you remember that in the next post. Tchüss.

Retired-Ed

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Fall Comes to my Village

Posted on October 13th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Travel

Last week I grabbed my camera and set out on a short walk around the neighborhood on a particularly glorious day. The leaves were not yet in their full color, but were still quite lovely. All of the photos were taken within three blocks of our house. Over the long weekend, the Queen and I took a drive to the Deutsche Weinstrasse (German Wine Road), and I’ll have some pictures to show of that trip in a subsequent post. Meanwhile, enjoy some of the fall colors of Unterfranken (Lower Franconia).

This is a picture of my neighbor’s shrubs which line our driveway. His house is a few meters higher up the hill than ours. You can see his solar panels on the roof through the leaves.

And the trees on the far side of our youth Fussball (soccer) field are just beginning to turn.

And the trees don’t all change color at the same time…


We don’t often get a lot of reds, but some of the smaller trees and shrubs can show off a little bit.

And some are pretty in the sunlight even if they haven’t started to change.

I don’t know if these guys are edible, but they were certainly colorful. Check out the star on each one.

And, finally, the fall flowers were in bloom and reminded me of college homecoming. Mine was last weekend, but of course, I missed it. I was at home in Europe.

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. The colors and the cooler temperatures make for such an exciting experience. I hope that you have enjoyed this little taste of Unterfranken.

Retired-Ed

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Rothenburg, Part II

Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Travel

There is so much more to Rothenburg than the churches, but they really stand out. The Rathaus (city hall) is in the center of town, surrounding by a “Marktplatz” (marketplace). Its front steps make for a convenient place to sit and rest for the many young visitors to the city. The front of the Rathaus is shown here. A vegetable vendor is shown at the bottom left. The “Platz” or town square is a popular meeting place and the “Night Watchman’s Tour” starts and ends here every evening. The tour guide is very personable, and the tours are given both in German and in English.

The other half of the Rathaus complex, to the left in the previous picture, houses the Glockenspiel. People will hang around the square as the top of the hour approaches. Then, at the appointed time, the bells will ring, the little windows will open, and our friendlybeer drinkers will do their thing. It isn’t quite as involved as some other big clocks (such as Munich), but is it still quite a sight to see. As you can see in the picture, it was straight-up twelve o’clock when we were watching and waiting for our lunch to arrive. While we were enjoying a delightful lunch at an outdoor cafe, my cell phone rang, and the caller asked for my friend. She said that the lady’s husband had told her how to find his wife. Since I was nosy, I asked (I knew the caller) if she was about to offer my friend a job. The answer was yes! So the day was doubly good. We had a nice time touring the city and she got hired into a teaching job. Not a bad way to spend a jet-lagged visit to a new country. I guess she had a good time. Her husband tells me that they are going back there again this weekend! While we were watching the clock do its thing, we ran into two American ladies from Texas who were having the time of their lives traveling around Germany. I helped one of them find a bank with an ATM so that she could buy more Euros. Yes, those Euros go quickly in this day and age. I definitely miss the more favorable exchange rates of years gone by.

And speaking of years gone by, it is possible to get a ride in a “Kutsch” while visiting Rothenburg o.d.T. A “Kutsch” is a horse-drawn wagon. This probably isn’t such a big deal to many people because you can get carriage rides in many cities. Still, it is a unique way to see the city. Can you see how this would be fun to check out the sights in an old medieval walled city? One of the sights to see on anybody’s tour is Kathe Wohlfarht’s Weihnachtsdorf, or Christmas Village. This is frequently the highlight of anybody’s visit to Rothenburg. Photography, if I remember correctly, is forbidden inside the village, but you can see the exterior here. You can read about the store here. It is very difficult to explain all of the treasures that can be found inside. You need to experience it to believe it. Imagine one large Christmas store selling ornaments from all over, lace, food, nutcrackers and smokers, all year long. It is amazing, and is truly deserving of its fame.

Even great days have to come to an end. As we reached the far end of the city, we came to a garden that hung over the valley. From our vantage point, we could look out over the countryside and also look back to the main part of the walled city. Here is one of our views. I’m sure that you have figured out that this is the view of the surrounding countryside. It was a bit hazy that day, but that didn’t stop us from soaking in the beauty of the place. At one time, I worked not 30 minutes from this location. In fact, I recently retired from that job. I wonder what it would have been like to have lived here in this area and commute to my job. I’ll never know, but I think it would have been very nice.

Looking in the other direction, we had a view of the buildings and the wall, along with some of the city gates. I feel so fortunate that I can come here time and time again, while other visitors get just one shot at it. And I still haven’t visited all of the museums. I guess I’ll just have to go back again and again.

To help me remember that I’d like to do just that, I’ll have this final picture to help me visualize what I want to see. So there you have it. I took over 70 pictures that day, but I will only bore you with about a dozen of them in two separate posts. If anyone wants to come to Germany for a look at some of the scenery and tourist attractions, I can offer an “Edventure” at very low rates!

Retired-Ed

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Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Posted on September 16th, 2009 by Retired-Ed in Travel

(Note to my readers: I have been trying for two days to make this work properly. I have tried and tried to get the text to wrap around the photos. It appears to be just fine in the visual editor, but when I preview the actual post, well, it just isn’t working. Do I have any readers who are WordPress experts? I’ve decided to post as is in order to keep this somewhat current. With any luck, the thumbnail pictures can be expanded to their full size. That’s one small victory. This trip will have to take up more than one post. It was amazing in many respects and I don’t want to load the post up with too many photos. Thanks for your understanding. By the way, by the time I had posted the third photo (of St. Wolfgang’s), I had already made 66 edits. You can see why this *&%$ thing has me frustrated.)

Addendum: Woohoo. I think I found the solution to the problem. And I found it by accident. In case you are wondering, if you want word-wrap, you can’t have any caption or title to the picture. Seems strange, but it worked.  - Ed

I’ve been away from the computer for a few days. It has been my pleasure to serve as “sponsor” for a new teaching couple that has recently arrived in Schweinfurt to begin their overseas careers. Since they arrived after the school year had begun, it was easier for this retired guy to serve as sponsor instead of a working stiff. And I enjoy this kind of stuff anyway. A sponsor helps newbies get their ID cards, drivers’ licenses, get registered at the housing office, and the like. In addition, I also got to pretend that I was more fluent in German than I actually am. They seemed to think that I knew what I was doing. Little do they know! After getting the male half of the couple squared away, I had a couple of days with his wife before she was actually hired to her own teaching job. I got to play tour guide, and we went to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, an old medieval walled city which I believe just might be Germany’s most popular tourist attraction. It’s about 45 minutes away, and I’ve been there many times, especially when I was working in Ansbach and I’d go there for dinner. Oh, did I happen to mention that my new friend is cute and very charming? That and the beautiful scenery to go along with the gorgeous weather that day made for a very enjoyable trip.

Although I’ve been there before, I was always just a tourist or a diner.  This time, I had to pretend that I knew what I was doing. First, we drove around the city to get the lay of the land from outside of town. As you can see, the area surrounding the town is very lovely.

Another view of the same stream is just as lovely. The city itself sits up on a hill, and these pictures were taken down in the valley. Needless to say, the views all around were exquisite. After touring the countryside surrounding the city, we drove up to one of the many parking lots and walked in through one of the gates in the wall. I have gone on several Volksmarches in this area, but I had never entered the city through this particular gate. By entering at this location, I was able to see another church in the city — one that I had not seen before. This one is called St. Wolfgang’s Kirche. It is also known as the Shepherd’s Church. Inside the church was a beautiful sanctuary with a small shepherds’ museum on the upper level. This particular church is at one corner of the city. Here is a picture of the exterior. The interior was ordorned with a beautiful chancel with a rather ornate altar. On the first upper level was a shepherds’ museum. As in many churches and other buildings of the era, the stairway was very narrow and uneven. I’m glad that I didn’t make a mess of things by falling. On the top level was a picture gallery.

There are several other churches in the town, and one of the largest and most famous is St. Jacob’s Kirche. This church dates to 1311, when construction first began on the east chancel. Of course, the church was Roman Catholic at that time. Construction continued until the mid-1400′s and was consecrated in 1485 by the bishop of Wuerzburg. I do not have a photo of the exterior, because renovations were ongoing (and have been for quite a while). The nave and chancel are very ornate, but not as much as some other churches that I have visited in Europe. This is a picture of the interior. The stained glass windows are 56 feet high and are dedicated to the Virgin  Mary (left), the life of Jesus (center), and Christ’s work through the sacraments (right). The tabernacle can be seen on the left of the high altar, with the baptismal font in the foreground. Remember, this church began as a Roman Catholic church. It became Protestant in 1544 with the coming of the Reformation.  Another view of the high altar area shows some detail in the artwork of the era. Gorgeous, isn’t it?

I’m leaving out so much, but I did want to show some photos of the balcony of the church at the opposite (west) end. This balcony is the site of a Riemenschneider altar. Never heard of Tilman Riemenschneider? He is a “local boy” who made good. He lived much of his life  in nearby Wuerzburg, and his sculptures are renowned for their beauty. To have a Riemenschneider altar in your church is a rare honor. In fact, in driving around the area, many roadsigns will point you to a site where a Riemenschneider altar can be found. This particular altar is known as the “Altar of the Holy Blood”. It was commissioned by the Rothenburg Council to be a worthy site for the “Reliquary of the Holy Blood”. Work began in 1499 and lasted until 1505. Keep in mind that this is before the Reformation. I doubt if my Lutheran brethren (yes, I trace my religious heritage back to Martin himself) would now house any “relics”, but this one is very special and dates back 5 centuries.

A closer view will show the crystal vial in the center of the cross. This vial is reputed to hold a drop of the blood of Jesus. Oddly, the crystal was placed in the cross in 1270 or thereabouts, lwhile the Apostle John leans on Christ’s bosom.

That will have to be enough for this post. I vowed to stay away from religion, but this is not about religion. It’s history and tourism, and a link to Germany’s past. There’s more to come on our adventure (my friend calls it an “Edventure”) to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Stay tuned.

Retired-Ed

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