A Real Castle

Seeing the Neuschwanstein castles were great. But they weren't full of rich history. More than anything I wanted to walk into a real castle. A castle that was hundreds and hundreds of years old. A castle of solid stone, without any paintings inside. I wanted to get to the heart of the castle; to touch the ancient shell. And the Wasem family let me do just that.

As I was walking around, completely in awe, I heard gun noises and some yelling. Looking up I saw three little boys running on one of the castle bridges to the lookout. They put their hand above their eyebrows, scrunched their eyes, and then yelled something in German. Immediately they raced into the depths of the castle yelling and shooting. Now how fun would that be?

This little old castle was one of the highlights of my trip.

a love for fabric

i felt right at home. standing in a little fabric store. in a big, red ashland sweatshirt. a new skirt pattern in my hand. glorious. marie’s mother is an exceptional seamstress who even owns her own fabric store. she was excited to hear that i loved sewing, as her daughter thought is was just a long and boring process, while i was thrilled to have her show me her new project. i told her how much i missed sewing. how i missed walking inside the fabric store. how i even missed the ironing part. and then she asked. asked me if i wanted to sew something while i was in germany. and of course, you know my answer.
so after brunch on new years day marie’s mother, peitra, took me to her shop. she sat me down at a table and handed me pattern books. the shiny pages glistened in the light just like they had this summer. i quickly turned to the skirt section feeling the pages slip through my fingers. and then spent a while trying to pick out my favorite skirt. oh, it was heavenly. i soaked in every moment. once i had the skirt pattern in hand (whose instructions are only in german, french, and italian) i walked around the shelves of fabric feeling their texture. studying the patterns.

aided by my hands, the scissors sniped the fabric on the dotted lines. the iron warmed and straightened out any wrinkles. my foot pressed down on the pedal and initiated the humming of the needle. and the invisible zipper (my favorite) slid right into place. peitra and i sat together chatting in broken language. being connected through our love of fabric. and i felt right at home. what a beautiful way to spend new years day.

Little German Towns (i know, not a very creative title)

Just to get through this fast I will give a brief synopsis of the two main little German towns I visited. The first was Marie’s own town of Dielkirchen and the second was Trier.

Dielkirchen was like most German towns consisting of just one main road and incredibly tiny population. Everyone in the town knows each other. And on Christmas Eve the entire town walked to church for the Christmas sermon. The houses have a beautiful simplicity about them. In fact most of the small towns in Germany had a captivating simplicity. After living in Ashland Marie feels trapped in her town, but I adored it.

Check out how narrow the sidewalk is!

We made a quick trip up to Trier one afternoon. Trier is the oldest city in Germany. It became a major Roman capital city in 16 BC under the direction of Augustus. The main market in Trier, Hauptmarkt, is absolutely breath taking and is one of my favorite places in Germany. Take a look.

Because Trier was an important Roman city, it has a fair share of Roman ruins. Porta Nigra is what is left of the four-mile wall that surrounded the Roman Trier. Of the four huge gates built only this one remains.

We really are in the picture. Just super tiny.

Another fun adventure the girls and I took while in Trier was a tour of the Roman Baths. We were able to walk around in the baths and spend a bit of time just discovering. We had a great lunch in Trier (oh, how I am going to miss European bread!)and then headed back home. It was a fun little side trip.

Bavaria

The day after Marie and I got back from Berlin her Father invited us to join him and Marie’s cousin Philip on a trip to Bavaria. Philip wanted to go to the Alps to do some sport. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was some high risk, adventure, flying sport. To Philip’s dismay, the sport was only offered in the spring; but to my excitement that mean the entire day was open for sightseeing. Philip was a good sport going on English castle tours (when he barley spoke) instead of sporting it up in the mountains.

Situated right in front of the German/Austrian Alps are the Neuschwanstein Castles. These castles are absolutely break taking from the outside. The inside was beautiful as well, but during my tour I found myself saying, “Am I seriously paying money to walk in something is only 100 years old? When can I see some real castles. Real old castles?” Living in Rome has sure changed my perception of what is old.



But nonetheless the castles were neat to see and being in Marie and Philip’s company made the tours exciting.

After the castles, we headed to Munich were our hotel was. And I can really say that Munich is my favorite city in Germany. We only spent one evening there. One rainy evening. But the entire time I was pinching myself and soaking in the atmosphere. Munich is the perfect mix between cozy downtown and busy city. The main street is so friendly and inviting with neat churches and buildings showing off their decorative styles. But there is still the thrill of the city dancing in the air. Standing in those perfect streets I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was perfectly happy to be in such a beautiful city. Just to feel the excitement and life. Here are some pictures of our rainy night.

We ate dinner in Munich at a traditional Bavarian Guest House. Where the women really were wearing this:
…and really were serving this. (Just pretend like the advertisement is not across the whole picture.) I asked Marie at least twice if the girls usually wear these outfits. Her response, “Of course. During the holidays and when you work in a traditional restaurant. I have a dirndl.” And everything on the menu was meat, meat, meat. The waiter was shocked when Marie asked for a vegetarian dish for me (I just couldn’t put another piece of meat in my mouth). The evening was delightful chatting with Marie’s Dad and cousin in a Bavarian Guest House in darling Munich.

Berlin's Memorials

Berlin has the neatest memorials. I think that was one of my favorite things about the city. So, just so I can remember ten years from now, I am going to post a little bit about my three favorite memorials.

Reichstag building. A building with a long and sometimes dark history. It was this building that Kaiser Wilhelm, the last German emperor, called the “house for chatting” in 1890. It was here that the German republic was proclaimed in 1918. This building held the votes which ultimately gave Hitler the power of a dictator in 1933. And Stalin’s troops captured this building on May 1st 1945. But from 1933 until 1999 the Reichstag building was hardly used. It sat for many years as an empty shell of unpleasant memories. Finally in 1995 the building was restored and began to again be used as a government building. But, instead of just restoring the building, something was added; on the very top of the building sits a glass cupola 155 high. If people have the time to stand in line for three hours they can walk to the top of the copula and have a spectacular view of Berlin. Even better though they are able to look down into the parliament room. The significance of this is beautiful. Through this symbol, the German government promises their people that no more will harmful government secrets be kept. No more will a person be able to have as much power as Hitler. The glass cupola on top symbolizes that the world can look into the parliament and keep check on the power there. This one terrifying building, which was used for all the wrong reasons, is now open for the world to see. To the German people this building now symbolizes the end of a horrible chapter in their history and the start of a new.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Its break taking when you see it. Completely abstract. The perfect place to contemplate. Built on a former SS barrack site, these 2,711 dark stones were places here in 2005 as a memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. People are free to walk through the memorial and ponder. Walking through the stones is an experience which helped me connect to the past and the emotions felt there. Personally I felt that my walk was almost a simulation of the emotions a concentration camp prisoner could have felt (although of course, not nearly as extreme). From the outside it looked like an easy walk with all of the stones about knee high. Little did I know that the deeper one walks into the memorial, the taller the stones get, and the lower the ground is. The ground is so low and the stones still high that it is impossible to see over them. I had plenty of space to walk between the stones, yet I felt that I was being squished, suffocated. I wanted to scream and get out of the maze, but I felt stuck. Although the rows were perfectly straight and it was easy to find my way out, I still felt trapped. I also felt completely alone. I knew that this area was probably filled with tourist walking through the stones, yet I felt like the only one in the middle of this captivity. Every once in a while I could catch a glimpse of color as a person turned a corner, but then I would be alone again. After my five minute walk I was so glad to get out of the stones. I could breathe again. And wouldn’t go back in for anything.

Bebelplatz. This is the square where the Nazi book burning of 1933 took place. That year staff and students from the university threw over 20,000 of newly forbidden books (like Einstein’s) into raging flames. Any written work in the college library which was deemed unfit for reading by the Nazis was burned that evening. Einstein, a professor at the university, left Berlin forever the next day. In the middle of this square, in the ground, is a glass window. Looking down into the window one can see a large room with a white bookshelf spanning across all four walls from top to bottom. The bookshelf is empty. More than anything I wanted to fill the shelf with books. It just stands there longingly and hopelessly. But because of the glass window, I was unable to change its empty state. I could only stare down at it and wish it was full. Like I can do nothing to change the events in history. The only thing I can do is learn from the past and promise to never make the same mistake again. What a powerful metaphor that was. But even powerful was the quote which was engraven into the ground beside the class window. In 1820 the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine said “When you start by burning books, you’ll end by burning people.” His book were in the bonfire of 1933. I hope the lesson is learned.

There are so many other beautiful memorials I wish I could write about. But I am WAY behind on blogging so I need to move on. I would go back to Berlin just to visit the memorials.

Berlin Day 3

Just to be brutally honest our second day in Berlin was tragic. Nothing worked out the way it should have. Marie and I awoke ready to tour the Reichstag building, visit the Neue Synagoge, go to the holocaust museum, and check out a few more squares. When we got ourselves to the center of Berlin we immediately started for the Holocaust Museum. Unfortunately the museum, to which entrance was free, was closed. I was heartbroken. But we decided not to dwell on that fact and just move on. So we made our way through the city visiting famous squares and tiny neighborhoods: Potsdamer Platz, Gendarmen-markt, and Hackeshe Hofe. Each place was so different. They were little pockets of surprises. It was nice to walk around, but it was freezing outside and drizzling the whole time. Marie and I darted into each building we could to bask in a bit of warmth, but eventually we would find ourselves outside again exposed to the elements.

My favorite building in all of Berlin:Rotes Rathaus. Such a rad color.

Marie who was hungry, wet, and tired.

After being cold, wet, and tired, we treated ourselves to a nice lunch at (ironically) an Italian restaurant. From there we decided to go to the Reichstag building so we could tour the dome. As we walked around the corner our draws dropped. the line. was. so. long. But, more than anything I wanted to be at the top of the dome looking out into the city and then into the parliament room. So we got in line. At the back of the line we started talking about how crazy were we for standing in this weather just to get to the top of a dome. The only thing both of us wanted to do at that point was be in the warm train or in our warm beds. So, laughing at our silly determination we took this picture which says, "why are we standing here?"

If only we knew that two and a half hours later we would still be in line. Not only would we still be in line, but just a few feet away from the door. And if only we knew that we would never get to walk in the top of the dome because we would have to leave and catch our train. And because we would be in line for so long we wouldn’t have time to visit the Neue Synagoge. How tragic. The next time I go to Berlin you get bet on the first thing I will do. I’m getting in line because I will stand in the dome of the Reichstag building.

This is Marie and I before we got in line. Notice the smiles.

And now Marie's smile is absolutely gone as she has been standing in line for over an hour. Check out the other half of the line in the pic below.

But before we headed home we had just a few minutes to see one last thing.

Just outside the train station was the Memorial Church which is a church that was destroyed during World War 2 and now stands as a reminder of the affects of war. Marie and I managed to see the church which made the up for the rest of the day. The church was amazing. If you have some time look up some more pictures of the church on google. Marie and I were sad to leave Berlin, but ready to be home again. And so many more adventures awaited us.