My name is Skawt

The other night some of the young folks (early 20's every one of them) were having a little party in the common room on our floor. Since the dormitory where we live is all concrete walls and ceilings and the floors are tiled, it's like living in an experimental speaker system at the Bose factory. Knowing I would not be able to sleep, I dropped in. Over the salsa music the Argentinean students were, one girl asks me my name.

"Scott Moore", I reply. She gave me a puzzled look and I thought perhaps the music was too loud or I was being too quiet. "SCOTT MOORE", I repeat. Again a puzzled look, but with a head shake meaning, "I am sorry traveler of the stars, but these vocal sounds you are making don't even sound like language to me". Exasperated, I simply say, "Ich heisse Scott". Here eyes light up and she says, "Oh! Skoht!", but with a very, very short "oh" like everyone else in Germany pronounces my name.

This reminded me of being in Germany last year when I met an old follow in a pub and upon hearing my name pronounced very distinctly, "Scott. Moore. I. haff. never. heard. this. name. before!" Sigh. My name is so common in English, you can't actually google me unless you add "phoom" or "online community" and there's still another Scott Moore who blogs about online community.

So, on a sleepless night, I mulled this over. Is my accent *that* bad? I repeated my name to myself over and over. Then I thanked the fates that I didn't have a roommate who would surely be cowering in a corner wondering why the hairy mad-man was whispering his own name. Then I realized that I pronounce my name with a longer "ah"ish kind of "o" as in dog. Not dohg, but dawg. How very American of me.

Sometimes it's easier to accept what is around you than struggle against it. So from now until I leave, I will be "Skoht", but my friends can call me Skawt.

How to surf in a landlocked German city in the Winter

Last weekend, as I left the Bavarian National Museum and headed toward the Englisher Garten to eventually get somem Gluhwein to warm me up, I spotted a crowd watching local surfers. In Germany. In December. In the cold (about 40 degrees F) . In the middle of a city in the middle of a land-locked state.

(Click the image to see the video)

If you do a google search on surfing the isar you will find longer videos and better pictures.

Class Picture

Back Row: Don from Chicago (now living in Germany), Me, Joseph from Canada
Middle Row: Suhail from the United Arab Emirates, Aies (sp?) from Greece, Frau Schwalb our teacher, Dan from Rumania
Sitting: Sarena from Italy, Ines from Spain, Roberta from Italy, Sarah fromm the UEA.
Not pictured are Thomas from Spain and Stephano from Switzerland.

Lots of pictures, not many descriptions

Although haven't been typing much, I have been uploading the pictures I take to my flicker account. I haven't been typing descriptions because I haven't found a tool that will allow me to create titles, descriptions and tags for each picture offline and then just batch upload them to flicker. For now, I pull them from the camera onto my laptop and then fromm the laptop, I can upload them (only when I have a fast stable connection) and then I have to go through them while online to change titles, add descriptions.

So, if anyone knows of a tool that let's me add metadata to my photos before I upload them to flicker (and will do it as a batch, not individually through their email service), let me know. In the mean time, enjoy this night shot of the back side of the city hall.

Aw, maw! Do I hafta blog?

Wow, I didn't realize it's been two weeks since I last posted. Basically, it's because I'm too busy getting through my day to have any desire to write. Heck, I still have postcards to write and those are mostly along the lines of "No snow yet. Hope this makes it by New Year's."

So here's the 5 minute catch up. The things that have been taking up most of my time and energy has been schooling, public transportation and food.

I'm not being a super-great student, but I'm improving. I will be far from fluent when we I am done here.

When I am not sitting and doing exercises or practice tests, I'm going fromm one place to another. While the public transportation here is really great (light rail trams, suburban trains, subways and busses every few minutes), it still soaks up time waiting and sitting on the train or taking a tram to the central station so you can take a subway a slightly different direction. and it's not like it's a commuter type train where I can whip out the postcards I haven't written yet or squeeze in some homework. Nope. You just sit or stand in often cramped spaces waiting for your stop.

And finally, food. While there are a gazillion sausage stands because of the christmas markets, bakeries literally on every corner and plenty of places to just grab somem food, finding actual vegetables or fruit at the these places is darn near impossible. I wind up stopping by various small markets every couple of days to buy some water (the tap water at my dorms really is drinkable, but kills the goodness of food when you cook with it), some veggies and some fruit. It seems like I am constanly loaded down with some little this or little that. My first weeks here were trying to build up a decent larder just to cook with: olive oil, salt, pepper, basil a kitchen knife and cutting board.

When I first arrived, I bought somme fresh dates. Not dried dates, but crisp, full dates. I have never eaten fresh dates and I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to get a half-kilo of them. After two days of eating fresh dates, I got tired of them and had to figure out what to do with them. I checked the mighty intar-web for recipies and found lots. Lots that would require me to buy all kinds fo spices and such that I would use only once. Instead, I dug into my memories of ordering bacon wrapped dates at a tapas bar and then improvised:

Scott's Use-up-these-fresh-dates-now Recipie
- A couple handfuls of fresh dated (pitted, duh)
- A couple of crisp apples (I used a couple Galas I had)
- A couple of ounces of fatty bacon (or what passes for bacon in germany)
- Roqufort or blue cheese

In a small thick-bottomed sauce pot (the kind issued to students in my dorm), fry the bacon so the fat is all nice and melted. Cut up your dates and apples into slices to they cook quickly. Toss them in with the bacon. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve on to a plate and crumble an ounce ro two of cheese into the mix and let it melt some. Serves one. Besure to eat in a common area where a girl from South Korea can wonder with either awe or disgust at your culinary skills.

Verbs, Verbs, Verbs!

So, I'm at the point, apparently where I have to learn verbs. Remember sometime in grade school learning the past tense of verbs? sink-sank-sunk. drink-drank-drunk. sing-sang-sung. think-thank-thunk. Oh, that's last one isn't right. Well, now you know how I currently sound when speaking to Germans about things that have past.

So I have a list of about 40-50 verbs that simply have to be memorized. It's a good thing I'm not here to goof off. No, that will come on the weekends. Not only does Munich have a Christmas market in nearly every plaza, but there is actually a Medieval-themed Christmas market. This should be entertaining. Be sure to follow the "Deutsch" link so you can check out the photos.

The cemetery of the living

Both the wired and wireless connections at the dorm are spotty and slow. I'm lucky if I make it through a couple of pages of surfing without the connection dropping. Thus, updates here will come in bunches when I plug the laptop into the schools media center connection.

On the morning I arrived late and missed my first class, I walked from my dorm over to a cemetery. I wanted to get to know the neighborhood and it seemed like an interesting destination. When I arrived, I found high brick walls surrounding a park with many trees scattered through out. Most of the headstones or memorials were from the mid-19thC and there were a lot of professors and teachers given high honors after their passing.

The walls had several openings where people were cutting through on their way to other streets. Just about in the middle, ironically, near a the tomb of a child, was a group of mothers with four children between them. As the mothers talked, the children played on the pathway, with each other and with the nearby garbage can. I've noticed that Germans are more free in allowing their children to walk about tethered as soon as they can so it's kinda nice to see really young kids at play in their miniature adult-like fashions.

When I decided to take a shot of the kids, I really was just trying to not get caught and accused of anything unsavory. But look close. I snagged the moment just as two of the boys are pushing the third against the can. I just imagine the little girl in the foreground saying, "that's right boys, rough him up until he hands over all his gummibears".

As I walked through the cemetery towards the path circling the inside, I started seeing the occasional jogger. These weren't any joggers, but out of the half-dozen or so, only two were even close to qualifying as young. Again, it seemed ironic that the old would partake in an activity that is intended to keep one healthy and living longer, if not better, in a place that is a perpetual reminder of the one fate no one can escape. Is it because of that reminder that they are spurred on to jog? Is it out of a sense of defiance? Or is it merely a convenient place to use as a track? It doesn't matter a whole lot. After all, cemeteries are for the living in more than one way.

I have arrived!

Whew! Lots to talk about. No pictures yet, I'm happy to have found a place to plug the laptop in. There is media center on the top floor of the Goethe Institut and while they don't have wireless, they will lend me a cable.

Despite Sunday the 26th being the busiest travel day of the year, I had no problems at all. My friend Amie picked me up at 7:30 and deserves a huge thanks for driving all the way down from Oakland just to drive over to SFO. Anyway, zero traffic along the way and at the airport. I checked in without a hitch, though I was thrown for a loop that United forces you to check in with their machines first. What got me was that I had to use a credit card in order to identify myself to the little machine. This worked even though I didn't buy my ticket. It made me think about the weird ways we are giving up privacy for convenience. had I been allowed to first use my driver's license or my passport, I would feel less uncomfortable about it.

And when I got to security, it was not thrilling to see that the young non-caucasian kid in front of me had his laptop scanned three times, turned on and generally held up while my backpack loaded with computer, camera, CD player, Nintendo DS, cables and batteries went waltzing through. Maybe I've adopted the I'm-really-tired-of-this-so-let's-not-waste-our-time look that I don't get hassled. Then again, it's probably because I'm white.

The flight stunk, but I generally hate being crammed into a tiny little place for hours on end. Even though the flight from Chicago to Munich wasn't full and we were able to swap seats around so I had two instead of one, it still stunk. There are few times in my life that I have wished I was well under 6 feet tall. Flying is usually one of them.

My first day was great, though. I took the subway from the airport to the city center and had little trouble finding the G-I. Once there, I went through an interview and, because they had sent me the entrance exam ahead of time (and I barely got it back to them the Friday before), I got to skip that part. After I was registered, they handed me 500€! Part of it is to cover breakfast and lunch which I expected, but the extra couple hundred just for grins? Sweet!

I turned around and spent part of that when I arrived at my housing. It's a dormitory that is part of another school in the city. As I was checking in, I asked if I could extend my stay by one week. It turns out that my room was available for that time so no problem, I just have to pay. But wait. It's only 16€ per night, so the extra week is about 100€! Double-sweet!

But my luck ran out this morning. I arrived when I was told, in the afternoon, to check where my class was being held. My name wasn't on the list so I asked and they told me. At the correct room is a room with five beautiful young women. I'm thinking I died and went to heaven. But it was not to be! I was in the right room, but at the wrong time. Crap, that means these aren't my classmates. Double-crap! I just missed the first day of my class.

So here I am in the Mediathek (I guess that's a play on words from Library which in German is Bibliothek), trying catch up on whatever work I might have missed and rescheduling my brain to the earlier class schedule. Not that I mind that, really. Having a morning class means I have the entire afternoon to myself rather than having my day broken up by needing to be back at the city center in the middle of the day.

So ending on a few high notes. The work I missed is mostly stuff I know so that's no biggie. And I have the rest of the day free to goof off, get further settled, take some pictures and figure out how to connect to the wifi at the dorm. If so, then I will have a few pictures of a cemetery up later.

Wieder Nach Deutschland!

In an unexpected turn, I am heading back to Germany. I've been taking German language courses at the San Francisco Goethe Institute for just about 2 years. Every year, they have a drawing for a 4 week course to learn German in Germany. Not only did I win the drawing, but it includes the flight, room and board (sans dinners and weekends) for four weeks. I have never won something this big before.

The catch? I have to take it before the end of the year. So I have been making sure my work is squared away and preparing for my trip. Just after Thanksgiving, I will be taking 5 hour classes 5 days a weeek for four weeks in Munich (München). And because I hate flying around the holidays, I am waiting till after Christmas to come home.

Stay tuned to this blog for what will likely be more regular updates. Not having to travel around is changing my packing. Not only will I bring more clothes (such as a suit and an overcoat), but I am also bringing my work laptop so I can write and make photo notations offline and then load it all up when I get internet access. I also picked up some a polarizing lens attachement and a rubber hood -- I will not tolerate anymore glare and reflections when taking pictures in museums. I'm also hoping my cell phone doesn't decide to die the second I arrive, too. Oh yeah, and some German grammar books with explanations in English!

I also have no real plans to travel outside the city much despite many the number of times I have heard "it's only a train ride". My main focus is to study. I want to get the most out of my time in class and the learning center. I'm even taking a workbook for the plane trip to use that time to squeeze in a few more words and practice.

Despite the preparation, it hasn't been feeling quite real yet. But today I got an email from the Goethe Institute in Munich with my placement test. I'll have to set aside 50 minutes to take the test (no cheating!) and send it back to them.

Okay, now it feels real.

It is my sad duty to inform you...

That I am home. Yeah, it took a week for me to post. I survived the Prepetually Screaming Child (three cheers to my mp3 CD player and rechargable batteries), jet lag and even my first week at work. For those keeping score:

- I did not check my bag once during my entire trip. It was worth all the fussing over what to pack and handwashing every night just to breeze through the "nothing to declare" gates at every airport.

- My most worrisome moment was not Berlin con-men, but having the German passport control wonder why I didn't have an entry stamp for Germany. Luckily, they make a joke about Italian passport control and let me go.

- According to my passport, I have entered the UK twice, but I have never left. I haven't left Italy, but I definitely left Germany without ever having been there. Way to go security forces of the EU!

- After three weeks of driving in Germany, I am still driving at 130km/h and highly annoyed at people who are simply cruising in the far left lane.

- My cell phone is still dead. I'm trying to swap out the battery. Grrr.

Checking out (of) Berlin

I´m in Berlin for what I am guessing is my last post until I arrive back home in the states. Oddly enough, I am in the only Internet cafe I could find near where I have been exploring -- Postdammer Platz. It´s upstairs as part of a Dunkin Donuts. I´m pretty conflicted about this. On one hand, take a look at the picture from Wikipedia. When I was in Berlin in 1985, we looked out over the barren Potsdamer Platz with the wall, the no-man´s land, barbed wire and lights. That it has been reclaimed is good in my eyes, but wow, what it´s been reclaimed with. I´m hoping I happen to have overlooked some small spot of charm and life and not something that seems to cater to either tourists or trying to convince Germans what the West is like.

The old German Democractic Republic tried to use Stalin Alle (now Karl-Marx-Allee) with it´s combined residential and commercial design and use as a way to introduce visitors to the socialist ideal. While the tune may have changed, someone still wants us to dance the same old steps.

Earlier today, as I was sitting under the giant TV tower near Alexander Platz, I heard an announcement come on repeating in German and English: "Dear Berlin Guests. The Police would like your attention. Do not gamble on or play the "Find the Lady" game. You cannot win." I giggled thinking that the old find the queen card shuffle had made it´s way to Germany. Then I crosses one of the many bridges of the Spree River. They weren´t kidding. On four corners of the bridge were four setups. What suprised me was that they were literally running a shell game. Wha-huh? Isn´t that the third oldest way to turn a trick?

So I watched for a bit because I knew that there was at least on shill who plays and wins, drawing in the victims. I spotted one right away. It seemed pretty obvious to me, but I watched at least two people get fleeced out of 50€ each in the space of a few minutes. When I pulled out my camera to take a picture the crowd closed in. I looked up and one man looked at me and said, "sorry". I smiled back at the second shill but I kept my camera aimed at the crowd. We kinda faced off and I put my camera away. He walked back to his look out position by a street light. A few minutes laters, I successfully snapped some pictures (but man, they just didn´t come out) and I heard "Kein fotografieren!" and I suddenly had two of the shills looking pretty pissed off at me. I then spotted a third shill and figured the odds weren´t looking so good. I backed off under the now very watchful eye of the lookout.

Another half a block and I come across a small crowd gathered around a couple of Berlin Police officers. they are running a shell game to in an effort to show people that it´s a scam and that they can´t win. I´m not sure how effective this is when there are four such scams running and pulling people in a strong stones throw away.

I just spent the rest of the time walking around and remembering that I can´t figure out what day it is. I told someone "no problem" and that I would meet them on Saturday in Berlin. Big problem -- today is Sunday. I´m such a putz.

Loving and Leaving Leipzig

While driving around Leipzig was more than a little bit of a chore, walking around without any real purpose has been a joy. Leipzig was originally recommended to me from one of the Conference Assocates during the last Game Developers Conference. She said it had a very strong youth culture. She was not wrong at all.

Leipzig calls itself the "Little Paris". I haven´t been to Paris so the best comparison I can make is to call it the "Big Berkeley". There is a range of hippies, street punks, hipsters, students and goths (called dark culture here) along with the business folks and blue collar workers when they aren´t building new streets, new streetcar stations and restoring whole buildings. There´s a lot fewer "fashionable" types and so people seem a little more down to earth than what I have had a chance to experince in Germany so far. I think the main reason is that, like Berkeley, it´s University in right in the city center.

Now all Berkeley needs is an Absinthe bar. Last night, I found my way to Sixtina where they have a lot of Absinthe. I didn´t count bottles, but I would guess over 40 varieties lined the top shelf of the bar. They had a handy chart of the top ten with or without anise and I ordered a Mr. Jekyll. After that I settled down with a beer and watched the regulars interact (I was clearly not part of the group so I was largely ignored). I had so much fun that I missed my last street car home and wound up hiking about 2 miles until 2AM. Walking, even drunk, even in the dark, is easier in Leipzig than driving.

Oh and my only picture of Leipzig. In Europe, there are a lot of things called "Mc" something. There are "McPaper" office supplies, "McNet" internet cafes. Let´s hear it for Europe not letting McDonald´s bully them around. The oddest "McSomething" I have seen yet is on the third floor of the Leipzig Main Train Station. The Station also houses a large shopping mall which my guide book called "a joy to shop in". Well, I guess they don´t have many malls in Europe so they don´t carry the same connotation. Plus, we don´t tend to build malls in 150 year old buildings. But back to the picture. Yup, the McClean are clean and safe toilets. Okay, to give them some due, they look very spa-like on the inside and you can nab a shower here for 7€. I´d have killed for something like this in Rome.

I know the city will hate me for representing them this way, but there was so much going one and so many layers of buildings, people and activity that pictures just could not do it any justice. And for that reason I love Leipzig even though I only just explored it (I rode street cars all day to the lake on the west side and the more funky south city). In less than 12 hours, I will be on my way to Berlin and in 36 hours, I will be taking my various flights toward home.

Is the fauxhawk Germany´s answer to the Mullet?

If I never see another grown man with a fauxhawk again, I will be ever so happy. I realize that the guy with the biggest beard in Germany shouldn´t come down on other people´s grooming choices, but please stop with the fauxhawk. It doesn´t look cool, sexy, hip or tough. It looks as though you can´t make an actual commitment to be edgy. It looks like you snuck out of the house with a normal doo and then did it up so mom never finds out. It should be left to five year old boys with a handful of shampoo in the tub.

And women of Germany, are you really finding this appealing?

Superstraße = Superscheiße

So a while back, I picked up a "Super Straße" which for those familiar with Thomas Guide, it´s a big old book of German roads. It´s been really helpful in keeping me fromm becoming utterly lost. However, it´s not really all that accurate, at least in terms fo the actual geography of the streets and as far as Leipzig goes, it´s been pretty much useless.

So, do not try to drive in Leipzig unless you have a eally good map and then it might not be worth it. This picture which I swiped off the interweb shows what is called a "Baustelle". That means "construction zone" and I can´t guess just how many of Leipzig´s streets are torn up for construction, but it´s a lot and definitely the most I have seen thus far. They are a host city for the World Cup in 2006 which explains much. With all the construction going on, the other word we get to learn is "Umleitung". This means "detour".

But the Leipzig tourist office was super helpful and tried really hard to find a cheap pension for me. They found a set of apartments about 7km outside of town. Cheap and it comes with private shower and kitchenette. I hit the Aldi and stocked up on food and coffee. No more 1,80€ a day habit! Still, getting out to the major autobahn is tricky. Luckily, I plan to spend Thursday and Friday using the street cars. There doesn´t seem to be any underground trains in the city so it´s very different with the large number of tracks all over the city.

I spent yesterday in Quedlinburg which is literally a city of half-timbered buildings. They have a museum that explains the building methods and different styles from the1300´s to the 1800´s and the museum itself is in a building built in 1310! (And let me tell you, I stuck my nose all over that building). I just came across Raymond Faure´s impressive photosite with over 570 pictures of Quedlinburg and this nice sheet of examples of half-timbered work from 1310 - 1576. Whew! That´s once less project I have to work on.

Today was Wittenberg which is where the film Luther takes place. No, there´s much more to the town, but I am about to get dinged another 1,50. I visited the Lucas Cranach (the Elder) house (where I learned that he ran a pharmacy and wine shop out of the lower floors) and the Luther House which has a really, really good presentation including many Cranach paintings and woodcuts from his workshop.

Quicky update

Sorry, no pictures today. I just happened to stumble on an internet cafe open on a Sunday in Mühlhausen. Mühlhausen is well know for it´s part in the Reformation and the Peasant´s War of 1524-26. Thomas Müntzer was said to provoke the peasants into fighting and the old East Germany considered him a hero. A docent at the Peasant War Museum revealed that their current exhibit is only two years old and that while the objects are the same, the context is very different than when the communist goverment ruled. So I got to see one of the five Mark notes that the wikipedia article mentions.

Today is Sunday. I spend Saturday driving from Lennep through Kassel to Mühlhausen. In Kassel, I visited the Museum fur Sepulkralkultür which is a museum of death culture -- funeral rites and mourning culture. Sadly, they had no good catalogs and their site doesn´t have good images, but took several including some beautiful rings.

I also spent the day recovering from my last night in Lennep. I stopped in at Bei Josef again and have about a pint. I expected to leave, eat and then return, but first an older man originally from Italy came and we started talking. Then a man originally from Turkey came in and we started talking. Suffice to say, I drank about 2 liters and spent the night drunkenly trying to get any point I might have across. I think I may be hosting some guest in the next year....

Taking My Ease in Lennep

My goal for Monday was to just relax. I had a late breakfast and went up to my room to write postcards to almost everyone. When I left my room at noon, I expected to check out some shops and then grab a bite to eat. A stroll around town and I found that I was encountering something I hadn´t yet in the larger cities I had been in -- every shop was closed between noon and 3PM. So I made my way to a place on the market place called "Bei Josef".

Instead of finding food, I found a group of men gathered around one table talking it up. I took a seat at this table and they asked who I was. When I asked them to speak a little more slowly, they assumed I was from Holland. I introduced myself and ordered a Schlösser Alt. I haven´t had a Schlösser Alt in 20 years when I was in Hameln and it was as good as I remember.
Pretty soon another older man came in and asked who I was. When I introduced myself as from California, he switched to English and started to tell me about his trip to the US -- Los Angeles, Utah, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas (he saw Sigfried and Roy) and San Francisco. He really, really wanted to practice his English and I figured it would give me a chance to get in some local good graces.

And how. Pretty soon we reintroduced ourselves. Paul then introduced me to his best friend Hans-Conrad and I met Karola, the red-faced, red-haired, stout barmaid and her husband Uwe. It was Hans-Conrad´s birthday and he was buying rounds for everyone. That included me after a bit. Then Josef himself came in and I was introduced again. Luckily, Josef was hip on the idea that I wanted to practice *my* German and was willing to speak only German to me. Another round on Hans-Conrad and a further round on Josef and it was a good way to spend an windy Fall afternoon. This is what I had hoped to find at least a little of while I was here.

As Paul and Hans-Conrad packed up in a taxi, I made my way to some shops. In the bookstore, I found several books on the town of Lennep and the area including one written for young teens (just a little above my readign abiliy in German so it will be good practice). Then I dropped into what I thought was a toy store, but it turned out to be a second hand shop. Better still, they had a pair of jeans in my size.

Cheap jeans have been a small but important goal since I arrived in Germany. I didn´t bring any as I figured they would take too long to dry and weigh to much traveling. However, everyone in Germany is wearing jeans and I have been feelign like a sore thumb. Particularly in my black slacks which seems to draw assumptions that I am orthodox Jewish including at least one sing-song cat-call of "Juden! Juden" by some stupid little boys. Anyway, they are classic overdone European style jeans for a mere 2,50€! So I´ll see how many stares I draw wearing them in Köln.

How could it be better? Discovering the local Aldi for cheap ready to eat meals (did I mention these are like a German Trader Joe´s) and finding a Döner place open on Sunday. I´ll do a whole post about Döner-Kabap sometime.

Finding a place to call home

After my overnight in Schwäbisch Hall, I headed for Heidelberg and the German Museum of Pharmacy. They did not allow photographs and the only definitive pieces I was interested in were three morters and three wooden drug jars. Considering wooden drug jars are extremely rare, this was worth the trip. It clarified a number of Medieval and Renaissance paintings and woodcuts of apothecaries. However, the rest of Heidelberg was overrun with tourists from all over Europe - from overly polite British folks to very demanding Germans from other parts of the country.

After that, I found the A1 Autobahn and headed north as fast as either the Renault or traffic would allow. My goal was to get to a point on the map somewhere near Köln but not too close to the city where prices would be high and the pace of life fast. I took a chance on a road side "Rasthof" which turned out to be a fairly American-style hotel. A bit more than I expected but it was definite shelter for the night. A bonus was that it has a local yellow pages with maps of the area and listings for (hurrah!) hotels. This areal shot of the town of Lennep caught my eye and it turned out that half of the hotels listed were in that town. Actually, the town is a suburb of a larger town called Remscheid, which mostly lays on the west side of the A1 while Lennep lies on the east side.

The next morning (a Sunday morning when *nothing* is open), I parked on the edge of town and walked around the old city. It´s very quaint and was utterly dead. I saw maybe a dozen people and that was only because I walked by the train station and near the newer part of town. The only accomodations I could find were hotels which tend to be a bit pricer than I really wanted, but the town was growing on me. When they started to open up, I picked the "König von Preußen" and it seemed like a good price. I was led up to an upper story room overlooking the market square. I unloaded the car and drove up to Münster where I hoped to find the Leper Museum (open only on Sunday from 3PM to 5PM).

Trying to find it turned out to be a bust and I spent most of my time there sitting in front of a beer cellar enjoying the really fine Fall weather and some equally fine beer. I´ll need to remember to write about the planned community I did find at Kinderhaus. It was so planned and nearly desserted on a Sunday that it felt creepy.

Neuberg and Schwäbisch Hall (or why I went Germany and skipped out on Rothenberg)

When I was in Nürnberg, I picked up a flyer for an exhibition called "At the Kaiser´s Pleasure" (Von Kaisers Gnaden) -- feel free to dispute my transation. So I headed south to Neuburg on der Donau a town that happens to be celebrating it´s 500 anniversery this year. Which got me thinking that the next 10-20 years will be good times to visit Germany for those interested in the early 16thC Germany. There should be more general interest in the period which means more accessible information and relevant events. Book your tickets kids!

Neuberg itself was built during the years 1535-45 so it´s a good example of a Reniassance palacial home. It was added to over the years including some mosaic grottos during the mid-17thC.

However the exhibit was wonderful. I arrived just as it opened and while I had to swim through school group after scool group, I was allowed to take pictures (without flash, of course). So some of them are a bit fuzzy, but being able to zoom in on a painting of Kaiser Karl V´s camp and pick up details of camp life that both the art and military historians tend to overlook. Of course, I picked up the exhibition book for non-fuzzy images. In addition to the works they normally have at Neuberg, they borrowed excellent pieces from all over Germany. I was able to look at examples of books from the Munich State Library Archives and some weapons borrowed from the Germanisches National Museum where I had recently been.

The old city is up on a hill and the rest of the town lies below. This makes the old town very quite and easy paced. I had a picnic lunch in the square surrounded by Baroque facaded buildings. While I ate, I looked at my map. It would take me at least an hour and half to get back up to Rothenberg. What I really wanted to do was find the "bone room" of 4000 monks under the St. Micheals church in Schwäbisch Hall. Taking the back roads, I figured I could make Schwäbisch Hall by 4 in time to catch the church still open.

I made to Schwäbisch Hall easily enough, but finding the Altstadt was a bit tricker until I just started going forward, trusting there would be a sign pointing me there. Wow. What can I say about Schwäbisch Hall? It´s beautiful. If you are interested in the 16thC Germany, put this on your list of places to visit. The church was built in stages during the 1400´s and it contains beautiful sculptures and altars pieces.

When I arrived, some children were practicing for a play - Joeseph and his Brother. Imagine walking up a hundred (or so) steps to a great stone church with one seriously pissed off Archangel over the door and hearing a soprano voice echoing out the door. It simply added to the experience. I entered and bought a guide boom. I asked about a bone room under the church, but my German must still need work since I was told, this is it. I decided to make the best of it and looked around. That´s where I found, behind the altar, an iron railing surrounding a large piece of plexiglass on the floor. I had found my monks and some of them were gracious enough to smile for me.

Stepping out of the church and into the light of the western sun, I decided I would stay and walk around some more and explore what alleyways it had to offer. I found a not-so cheap place near the church and explored. I didn´t take many pictures because at one point, I got tired of carrying the camera. So I put it away and watch some students set up backlit sheets across the ruins of some old part of the city and walked the maze of streets until well after dark. In the morning, as the fog lifted from the surrounding river valley, I watched the Saturday morning market get underway in the plaza under the church steps.

Auf dem Autobahn

Yup! I got me a car and I´ve hit the road. Well, except it´s not much of a car. It´s a Renault and it´s like driveing a delivery truck. The seats are way too high and built like truck seats so I am not comfortable with how it handles curves any higher than 140 km/h (86mph). I´ve been driving on both regular raods and the autobahn and I can´t always say that the autobahn is faster. See, it´s a myth that the Germans are speed demons. If the speed limit is posted at 100, 80, 60, 40 km/h then they pretty much adhere to that limit. As soon as there is no limit or the magic 120 sign comes up, then they go for broke. It´s not hard driving here at all.

I spent my first day in the car driving far south to Mindelheim, the location of Mindelberg and the birth place of Georg von Frundsberg. The castle is closed, but I was able to get a good view of the town and walk off my typical German breakfast of bread, butter, cheese.

The drive home was an education in reading German road signs. My map has tiny numbers indicating the road number (and then there are hundreds of small towns and roads it doesn´t show). On road signs, there are typically 3-8 city names and sometimes an equally small number and color indicating what road takes you there. So if there are 15 towns between you and your destination, read quick! It´s not that bad. I missed only one turn taking the winding roads across Bavaria in the dark. (Oh yeah, no signs are lighted here, that´s one reason they are extra big.) But I made it home in one piece, found a free overnight parkign spot and in the morning, found my way out of Nürnberg and heading south....

We have pictures!

Today, I met with Dr. Johannis Willers, the curator in charge of the medical display at the Germanisches National Museum. He explained (very quickly and in German) that there are very few surgical tools left from the 16th C. He recommended that I check two surgical manuals from the period and I explained that I already had both. I was able to ask where the very cool surgical tool case was and he said it was being photographed. I will write to him latr and see if I can obtain detailed photographs.

Yesterday, I went to Ingolstadt. I got off late and so I had to cool my heels while waiting for them to reopen in the afternoon. I stopped in the Das Bayerische Armee-Museum. For my friends who know, this is the Museum that has the Turkish tent and the full Fähnlein of 500 tin soldiers all painted differently. Well, they also have a very nice display of guns and artillery.

Here´s a handmortar ("Kat´s Head) from the late 16thC. There´s appearantly been a discussion of drummers being armed so this one is for you.

The Armee Museum is seemingly endless. Just as I turn another corner, I was asked to follow a docent. I followed him out the door, through a courtyard, into another building and them up three flights of stairs. He gave me a courteous bow and turned on a light to another exhibition. I was in a room of photographs documenting the destruction of Ingolstadt by American bombers early 1945. This has been a sobering aspect of visiting Germany as an adult. To realize just how much we bombed, how much history was destroyed and then to walk the same streets and see how much was rebuilt and even restored.

Suddenly, the "US World Tour, Bombing a Country Near You" tee shirt that I picked up on a lark didn´t seem nearly as smarmy.

But I came here for a purpose. Not to have my concept of the world and my place in it altared (that´s a joke, son). Off to the Medical Museum! I had tried to write to the Museum before I left (and I have recieved an answer from all I contacted by now) so I took my chances on trying to meet someone. No luck. The nice woman behind the counter could not quite understand who I was seeking and since I didn´t have a name, it was a bit futile. So I resolved to look and if I had questions to press for information afterwards.

I asked if I could take pictures without a flash which has been allowed so far (I was allowed to take photos of Dürer and Cranach paintings!). Not this time -- no pictures at all. Crud. Luckily, the 16thC instruments were in a small case, laying flat which made it pretty easy to sketch and measure. Again, it´s less than a dozen instruments, so I sat down and got to work.

Until a woman came by and was photographing every thing in site -- with a flash! So I let her go through and the decided to just screw it. I´ll take as many notes and measurements as I need and then start snapping. If they throw me out, it´s more than I would have gotten. So, to the director and all the staff at the medical museum in Ingolstadt, I apologize. But it was worth it to
be able to get detailed close ups of construction like this.