Germany Part III (Finally) And that European Life

Hello friends and family,

I hope you enjoyed a restful Thanksgiving filled with lots of turkey and gratitude. I unfortunately did not have turkey here in France, but I managed to celebrate Thanksgiving in other ways. I’ll get to that though. I have a feeling this is going to be a massively long blog post, but hey, you are all on Thanksgiving break, so you have no excuse not to read the whole thing.

So, where was I? Oh right, my second week in Germany, which was now about a month ago. Once I returned from Hamburg, I visited several different cities in Germany and one in the Netherlands. I’ll give a brief overview of each of them.

Ösnabrück- October 26th

The town hall in Ösnabrück

Ösnabrück

The day that I left Hamburg, I met up with my roommate Anne-Marie in the quaint town of Ösnabrück, where her boyfriend, Jan, goes to law school. Jan graciously showed us around the town, which has quite a few ancient buildings. Unfortunately much of it was bombed during World War II. It’s most well-known as the site of a treaty that ended the Thirty Years’ War, a war between Catholics and Protestants back in the 1600’s. Ösnabrück was the main Protestant hold, while another city that I visited later in the week, Münster was where the Catholics signed the same peace treaty. We went into the town hall in Ösnabrück and sat in the salon where the dignitaries from the Protestants signed the peace treaty. I’m not that familiar with European history, but I could appreciate the historical significance of this treaty, which was the last major religious war between Protestants and Christians in Europe. It’s possible that some of my ancestors fought and died in the war or were otherwise affected, since I know that some of my family came from Germany and my family is Lutheran. While I was in Ösnabrück, I also learned about a peculiar tradition in Northern Germany: when a single man turns 30, he has to sweep the steps of his local town hall while women cheer him on, and the only way he can be freed of this task is to receive a kiss. A little strange, I know.

That also reminds me, of something I forgot to mention when I was talking about hanging out in Cologne. Apparently, in Cologne, on the first day, it’s a tradition for men to give their girlfriend a branch from a birch. Somehow this spiraled out of control, and in recent years, men have been carrying entire birch trees to their girlfriends to prove their love.

But I digress. So after Jan showed us around, Anne-Marie and I headed back to her house in Gladbeck, where I spent the rest of the week. But I also made plenty of day trips around the area.

Duisburg- October 27th

On the riverboat tour of Duisburg

On Monday of that week, Anne-Marie, her parents, and I went to Duisburg, a nearby city in the Ruhrgebiet, which is the largest inland port in the world. We walked around the river banks, which were flanked by industrial-looking buildings and nice restaurants. It reminded me of Jack London Square in Oakland. Then, we took a riverboat tour of the port, which was quite cool. Unfortunately, the narration was only in German, but Anne-Marie translated a lot of it for me.

Winterswijk, the Netherlands- October 28th

Winterswijk, Netherlands

The next day, we took a day trip to the Netherlands. Because you can do that in Germany. Anne-Marie only lives about one hour from the border. We drove to Winterswijk, which is a cute little town right near the frontier in a more agricultural area. There wasn’t much to do there except for shop. This was the first time I had been in the Netherlands since I went to Rotterdam when I was thirteen, but seeing the Dutch language felt familiar. By that time in my trip, I was so accustomed to seeing German everywhere, and I had started recognizing some words, so trying to read the Dutch left me puzzled.

Düsseldorf- October 29th

I went on a day trip to Düsseldorf, which I found to be a rather dreary city. Maybe I just got that impression because it was drizzling the whole time I was there. I walked around the city, saw its famous shopping street, Königsallee, which has really overpriced stores, briefly visited its Old Town, took a stroll by the Rhine, and then decided I had seen enough. I then took a tram out to the Neanderthal Museum, which is located in a Valley where one of the first Neanderthal skeletons was discovered. I had a blast there, seeing the exhibit and learning about Neanderthals and early modern humans. I love that kind of stuff. Did you know, for example, that Neanderthals probably had language capacity, since their voice box has the same form as ours? And that early modern humans flossed their teeth with twigs or whatever was available? It was a really fun museum, with plenty of Neanderthal wax figures. I highly recommend it.

Münster- October 30th

I visited Münster with Anne-Marie, because she went to the university there and needed to turn in some paperwork for completing her masters. Münster was one of my favorite cities in Germany. It has a college town feel. There are tons of young people everywhere, and everyone rides bikes. I almost was hit by bicyclists like three or four times in the single day we were there. We hung out at the university, which has a château as one of its main buildings. Apparently, it’s pretty common for universities to have châteaus on their campus in Germany, because there was one at Ösnabrück too (but the one at Münster was bigger). We walked around a quiet lake right in the middle of the city, and we also explored the downtown area, which has magnificent architecture. Münster is known for a particular type of roof, which has steps on it. Apparently most of its old buildings were also destroyed in the war, but since Münster has a rich population, they were able to reconstruct most of its buildings anew. The city had an energetic vibe, and it seemed like it would be a great location for students.

The château at Münster

Münster’s well-known roofs

The rest of my break, I spent with Anne-Marie and her family in Gladbeck. They were so nice to let me stay with them for two whole weeks! It’s been a month, and I can’t wait until I get another chance to go back to Germany. I had a fantastic time exploring it. Despite whatever stereotypes exist of Germans, everyone I met in Germany was extremely kind and helpful and totally understanding of the fact that I didn’t speak German. I had a fantastic time there.

So what have I been up to since then, in the past month? Well, I’ve been working, doing NaNoWriMo (which I finished! yay!), and also exploring the region of Europe where I live.

Basel

Me in front of the Rhine in Basel

Basel already has Christmas decorations!

On Veteran’s Day, November 11, which was Armistice Day here in France, I went to Basel, Switzerland for the day. I loved the city, which is built on a hill and has an interesting mix of French, German, and Swiss culture. Anne-Marie and I basically wandered around it the entire day. The city has gorgeous architecture, views of the Rhine, an incredible cathedral, and a striking town hall painted red with ornate designs. I plan on going back to Basel, since it’s only an hour away by train, so you’ll hear more about it at some point.

Two weekends ago, on November 15, I went to Belfort, France, with another English teaching assistant, my friend Fraser, who is from Scotland. We met up with one of his Scottish friends, another teaching assistant, who lives in Belfort. Belfort is technically part of a different region of France: France Comté, which is known for its cheese, but it’s directly on the border of Alsace. In fact, I actually live very close to Belfort. I am only 25 minutes away from it by train. We checked out Belfort’s Citadel, its most well-known landmark, which dates back to the middle ages. Belfort was under siege during the Prussian War in the 19th Century, and when the Prussians won, Alsace was incorporated into Germany. Belfort, however, refused to be annexed, because it was mostly French-speaking, so it became the border of France at the time. As a result, Belfort’s architecture looks more French than the buildings here in Alsace. Its downtown has 19th Century buildings that look like ones you might find in Paris or Lyon. Belfort also is famous for its statue, “The Lion of Belfort” by the sculptor Bartholdi. Does his name sound familiar? It’s probably because he’s the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty. “The Lion of Belfort” was created to commemorate the siege of Belfort during the Prussian War.

The Citadel of Belfort, with the Lion guarding it

Finally, last but not least, here’s how I spent my Thanksgiving in France:

Thanskgiving Luncheon with my students

Pies! At least they got that part right about Thanskgiving!

On Tuesday, November 25, two of the teachers who are in charge of advanced English and History classes (some of which are taught in English) invited me to a Thanksgiving luncheon that their students were making. It was truly a diverse potluck of dishes that were “American” in some way or another. I had sweet potatoes (sadly no marshmallows on top, although I told the teacher who made it that the marshmallows were an essential ingredient), cornbread, Chinese-style salad, boiled potatoes, pumpkin soup, and pie (lots of pie). Sadly, there was no turkey, but it would have been difficult to cook and then bring to school, so I understood. It wasn’t your typical Thanksgiving meal, but it was quite enjoyable, all the same.

French students celebrating Thanksgiving

The main attraction at the foir de St. Catherine

Then, yesterday, on actual Thanksgiving, I spent my day at the foire de Saint-Catherine (the fair of St. Catherine). I was lucky that Altkirch happens to have its own local holiday on November 27, so I didn’t have to work. Instead, I watched as my normally sleep French town went into full-on market mode for the fair. The fair, which was in its 513th year, was originally for peasants to sell their livestock, harvest, and other agricultural products. Now, the main attraction is its tractors and farming equipment. There were also stands selling all sorts of things: local honey, soap, Christmas ornaments, crêpes, even churros, and my favorite: vin chaud (mulled wine). It was quite a site to see the normally deserted streets transformed into a bustling market. There was also an area just for livestock, where I was able to pet horses, ponies, and goats. There were chickens too, but I didn’t feel like petting them.

Ponies!!!

Goats and chickens

Altkirch all decked out for the fair

That about sums up my past month in France. I’m so grateful to be here and to be pushing myself out of my comfort zone while I travel and have adventures. I’m visiting another city in Alsace this upcoming weekend, Colmar, where the Christmas market is now open. So expect to here more about that soon!

Here are some more pictures from Basel, because it was an especially beautiful city:

Basel and the Rhine

The Town Hall of Basel, Switzerland

Germany Part II

It’s been a week and a half since I left Germany and I already miss it. I mostly miss staying with my roommate’s family, because they treated me basically like another daughter. Anne-Marie let me sleep in her own bed, her mom cooked for me and did my laundry, and her dad even showed me some embarrassing videos of Anne-Marie from her teenage years. Almost every morning I was there, I sat down with the family for a traditional German breakfast, which consists of eating large bread rolls with butter, cheese, and meat, usually sausage, salami, or other deli meat. The first breakfast I had, I tried a German specialty: Mett, raw minced pork with spices. Despite the fact that when I spread it onto my plate, it looked really uncooked and red, I pretended it was sushi and took a bite. It did not taste bad at all, but just knowing that it was raw made me feel kind of queasy, so that was the only time I had it.

In Germany, most of my meals revolved around Kartoffeln, potatoes. During my stay in Germany, I had mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, potato dumplings, roasted potatoes, potato salad, potato and potatoes in a raclette, which is melted cheese grilled with vegetables and meat in a dish that looks like a slice of pizza. I kinda miss the potatoes now that I’m back in France.

Now I’ll continue discussing the rest of my trip in Germany. I’m not sure if this will take one post or two- we’ll see.

Hamburg

On Friday October 24, I took the train to Hamburg, a city in the north of Germany situated on the River Elbe which goes out into the sea. It’s actually quite a beautiful and interesting destination, and I don’t think many Americans know about it, so if you get a chance to go visit it, I highly recommend it.

Hamburg, which is actually the second-largest city in Germany, is known for its maritime culture. Before it was incorporated into Germany and even for some time after it became part of the country, it was known as the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which means it had open trade and was not subject to the taxes and customs of the Holy Roman Empire, and later Germany.

On my first day in Hamburg, I spent the day walking around, seeing its most well-known sights. I visited the former church of St. Nikolai, now a skeleton of a building.

St. Nikolai under construction

Hamburg was heavily bombed during WWII, and afterwards the burned spire of St. Nikolai stood out as a symbol of the destruction that had been wreaked on the city. St. Nikolai is now a memorial for all the victims of WWII, including German citizens, victims of the Nazi state such as Jews and political prisoners in Germany and other countries, and Allies who perished in the war. The tower itself is under reconstruction. You can go up to visit the top, but you can’t get a very good view of the city from there- there is too much construction in the way. The basement of the church, which used to be its wine cellar, now holds a very fascinating exhibit about the war. It shows in plain terms the destruction caused by the firebombing of the city and how it was rebuilt. But at the same time that it acknowledges the tragedy that the city experienced it also points out that it was Hitler’s regime that began the firebombing with its bombing of England and the Netherlands. It also shows how the Nazi regime escalated the war with the expectation that their citizens in turn would be bombed. I learned many of the implications of the bombing- Jews and other persecuted people were not allowed in public air raid shelters. Also, after the bombing was over, the Nazis installed displaced people in the houses that had been confiscated from Jews. The exhibit even included a section about the Allied pilots who were bombing the city, about how difficult and traumatizing the experience was for them too. I highly recommend visiting St. Nikolai if you are in Hamburg to see this exhibit for yourself.

St. Michael’s Church

The gorgeous interior of the church

Next I visited the church of St. Michael’s, which is a very beautiful building indeed.It has a gorgeous Baroque interior. It also has a tower that you can pay to visit. I was determined to get some exercise that day so I took the stairs all the way, but you can also take the elevator. I was huffing and puffing by the time I got up to the top, but I was rewarded with an incredible view of the city on all sides.

The view of the harbor from the top of St. Michael’s

From St. Michael’s Church, I walked to what became my favorite place in Hamburg: Speicherstadt, the old warehouse district. Its buildings are absolutely magnificent, and you can walk through the area, seeing the canals and the places where wares from all over the world were once unloaded. The buildings are mostly used for other purposes now, but there are still some import businesses there.

 

An example of buildings in the Speicherstadt, the old warehouse district

Right across the street from the Speicherstadt is another neighborhood that presents an interesting contrast to the older, traditional buildings behind it. Hafen City is a relatively new development with shiny glass buildings and more great views of Hamburg’s canals. The most striking building is one that is still under construction, the Elbphilharmonie, which will be a magnificent music hall once it opens. It is an outstanding building, but it is projected to cost the city €789 million euros, much more than it was originally supposed to cost, and it won’t open until 2017 at the earliest.

The Elbphilharmonie under construction

My last stop of the day was a visit to the Miniatur Wunderland, the largest miniature train set in the entire world. In fact, it is housed in an old warehouse in the Speicherstadt, and for 9 euros (the student price. Yes, I know I’m not a student, shhh), I was able to visit the museum and see for myself an incredibly detailed array of miniature displays. They had a miniature version of Switzerland, Germany, the city of Hamburg, and even the United States. The level of detail in these displays was incredible. If you look closely, you can see what each little figurine is doing, such as shopping for groceries or protesting in the street. The trains are all running, and there are other moving parts too such as spinning min-ferris wheels or cable cars taking figurines up the mountain to go skiing. It was insane and totally worth the money I paid to visit. The only thing is it can get pretty crowded, so you have to push your way through to see the displays, especially if you’re small like me. Yes, I’ll admit I definitly elbowed several children out of the way so I could see the train sets better.

Miniature people going to a concert in Miniatur Wunderland

The next day, in the morning I walked around Hamburg’s lakes, the Alsters, which are not far from its main shopping area. It was gray and a little rainy, but nevertheless the route was quite pleasant. Next, I headed to the port, hoping to take a tour. I knew there was one English tour at noon exactly, so I took the metro over to arrive at the port 15 minutes early. I looked for the right pier, but couldn’t find it, and after looking for about ten minutes, I started to worry that I was going to miss the boat. I finally found the right pier and an employee from the right tour business at 11:58. Sadly, I was too late and the boat left before I could get on it.

I was disappointed, but I knew this was just one of those let-downs that you have deal with sometimes when traveling. I walked around the port area and found out that there was a double-decker tour bus with audio in English that started from the parking lot of the port. Normally I don’t do bus tours because I prefer to see a city on foot or by public transportation. But since I had already explored a lot of the city already, I thought it would be a good idea to ride around on the bus and learn more about the city’s history, which I couldn’t learn just from walking around because all of the informational signs are in German, which I can’t read. So I dished out 15 euros for the bus tour, and even though it was a hop-on, hop-off, I stayed on the bus the whole time, contented to just look out the window and listen.

The tour guide gave me some earphones that I could plug into my seat so I could hear the English audio guide. The audio player was not perfectly synced with the timing of the actual bus. I think the bus was going faster than the player anticipated, because several times the audio would be discussing one topic and then would get cut off since we had already moved on to another area of the city. However, it was still cool to hear some more about the city’s history and anecdotes about different places that I had already seen. I also got to see more of the city that I had not yet explored. For example, I saw the only street in the world that is one-way but changes which direction it runs during the middle of the day. At certain times of the day, it is one-way going in the direction of leaving the city, and during rush hour, it switches towards going in the direction of going into the city. Apparently this has not yet caused any problems, but if it did the legal consequences of an accident there would be inconclusive and probably disputed. On the bus tour, I also saw the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s famous red-light district. Everyone at my hostel went out to the Reeperbahn to go to clubs both nights that I was there. Personally, I didn’t really feel like going out by myself in such a sketchy neighborhood. Apparently there is a street in the Reeperbahn where prostitutes work, and it is forbidden for women or children to go on that street. Women are forbidden because they are viewed as “competition.” Seems like a rather hetero-normative idea, since who knows, maybe women could also be customers, right? But anyway, apparently if you walk down that street as a woman, you might get water, or something worse, tossed on you. I am not sure if this is an urban legend or a real fact, but either way, I did not want to go near that street.

After the bus tour, I walked through the Old Elbe tunnel, which was the first underwater tunnel of its kind every to be built. It was originally used to allow workers who worked at the port to commute to the other side of the river without taking a boat. It was rather eerie, and it has these giant elevators that can hold a lot of cargo.

I was pretty exhausted after all of this, so I headed back to the hostel and looked up a nice restaurant to treat myself to dinner. I had a traditional Hamburg dinner of fish and vegetables, topped off my meal with Rote Grütze, berry pudding with vanilla creme.

The next morning, which was a Sunday, I woke up fairly early and headed to the St. Pauli Fischmarkt, which is the hopping place to be in Hamburg on a Sunday morning. It was enormous, filled with not only fish vendors, but also fruit vendors, and people selling t-shirts, scarves, and basically everything else you can imagine. Inside the old auction hall, there was a band of old geezers playing rock n’ roll oldies, tables of Germans eating breakfast and drinking beer (yes, at 8 in the morning), and some very drunken dancers rocking out at the front of the stage. It was an incredible atmosphere, with the sun shining into the hall, and I almost forgot how early it was and how sleepy I usually feel at that time of day.

The fish market!

Real fish at the fish market

Crazy fruit baskets at the fish market

Germans getting turnt at 8 AM

Sadly, later that morning it was time for me to leave Hamburg. It was an incredible city, and as the first place I’ve traveled all by myself, it was a great choice.

To hear about the rest of my adventures in Germany, you will have to wait for my next blog post. I’ve still got a lot to talk about. In my second week of Germany, I visited Osnabruck, Duisburg, Munster, Dusseldorf and Winterswijk, which is actually in the Netherlands. And today, by the way, I took the train to Basel, Switzerland and spent the day walking around there. Stay tuned, I hope to write another blog post soon. I’m about halfway through NaNoWriMo, word-count wise, so today I am giving myself a pass on writing my novel. But I’m still very busy with that and also teaching, so forgive me if I take a long time to write my blog posts.

 

The view of the Hamburg Harbor on a Sunday morning

 

Wilkommen in Deutschland Part I

For the past two weeks, I’ve been on vacation for Toussaint (All Saint’s Day), which is technically celebrated today, on November 1. I was a little surprised that I had so much vacation after only working for less than three weeks, but hey I am not complaining! I have been staying with my roommate Anne-Marie and her family for the past two weeks in a medium sized town called Gladbeck in the Ruhrgebiet, an industrial area in the west of Germany. I have visited so many places and seen so much in the past two weeks that there is no way for me to describe it all, but I will give the highlights. I don’t think I have enough energy to talk about every place I visited today, so I will split up my post into at least two parts. In this part, I will describe everything I did in my first week in Germany.

Gladbeck: October 18 and October 23

My hosts showed me around the cute city of Gladbeck. I checked out the town hall and the marketplace, and I ate some Reibekuhen, a fried potato pancake, which is the specialty of the region. Later on in the week, Anne-Marie’s family showed me the chateau of Gladbeck, which dates back to the 12th century.

Reibekuchen, a specialty of the Ruhrgebiet

Gladbeck Town Hall

Anne-Marie and I in front of the Gladbeck Chateau

Cologne: October 20

The Cologne Cathedral which was left mostly untouched by the bombing of Cologne in WWII

The Shrine of the Three Kings

An old crane on display by the Rhine in Cologne

Anne-Marie’s friend, Victoria, who is a student in Cologne showed me around this incredible city. The biggest attraction (literally) is its huge Cathedral which dates back to the 13th century. Inside this incredible cathedral is the Shrine of the Three Kings which supposedly holds the bones of the Magi who came to visit Jesus at his birth. After seeing the cathedral, we walked around the city. Victoria showed me around the old parts of the city. We also walked by the Rhine, which had old cranes dating back to the 1920’s on display.

 

During the time of Carnaval, Cologne’s streets are apparently filled with crazy floats, people in ornate costumes, and there is revelry all over the city. Cologne, like many other cities in the West of Germany, was badly damaged by bombings in WWII, so not many old buildings survived. Cologne has a really interesting mix of old and new architecture as a result.

I visited Cologne on a Monday, and it turns out that most museums in Germany are closed on Mondays. So I didn’t have the chance to go to the most famous museums in Cologne. However, the Fragrance Museum was open. It’s located in the original store where Johann Farina created the original Eau de Cologne. For five euros, I received a guided tour of the museum given by the founder, Johann Farina himself (it was an actor of course, but he was very convincing). He told us about the history of perfume in general and how Farina revolutionized perfume making with his lighter scents made with pure distilled alcohol. We learned about the history of the Farina company, which was founded in 1709, and soon was sending its products all over the world. He explained that there have been many knock-offs of Eau de Cologne since then, which is why the name now means a general weak perfume. We also had a chance to smell different scents that go into the making of the perfume, but the exact recipe is a secret, of course. At the end of the tour, we received a little sample of the original Eau de Cologne to take home.

Hanging out with the founder of the Farina Perfume company

That evening Victoria and I had dinner at a restaurant in downtown Cologne, and I tried Kölsch, the specialty beer in Cologne. Then I headed back on the train to Gladbeck (it’s about an hour and a half away on the train).

A picture of me drinking Kölsch

Essen: October 21

Villa Hügel

The next day, I checked out the city of Essen, the closest major city to Gladbeck. The downtown was mostly a shopping district, so I went a little bit outside the city to check out something different. I visited Villa Hügel, which was the residence of the Krupp family, a really important industrial family in the region. They owned a lot of the factories and were responsible for a lot of technological innovations. The man who built the Villa, Alfred Krupp, was actually known for his social policies to help his workers have a decent living. However, there are many things that were problematic with the family, since they made their fortune off of producing weapons for Germany during its many wars. Unfortunately, the legacy of the family was especially tainted when the family supported the Nazi party during WWII. Hitler even passed a special law that said that the family could retain control of the business so that the son of Bertha Krupp, Alfried Krupp, could inherit the company. Alfried Krupp used slave labor, mostly Jewish prisoners, in his factories during the war. For this, he was convicted of crimes against humanity once the war was over. In fact, he was placed under house arrest in the very Villa which I visited. The signs in the Villa were all in German, so I found out all of this by scrolling through wikipedia while I was in the Villa. Needless to say, it was rather creepy to be in a house that from the outside looks so nice, but which housed such a monster.

On Friday, October 24, I headed to Hamburg for the weekend, but I think that trip and the other trips I made in Germany deserve their own post. I promise to post again soon, but I’m also trying to do National Novel Writing Month, so I’ll be a bit busy with that and my job, since my vacation ends on Monday.