Some people had problems finding the latest waste of time I put on the webalbum, so here's the exact link: http://picasaweb.google.com/zerstorer.von.welten/PhilosophyCartoons#
You probably won't get all the jokes unless you can recognize philosophers based on images the internet has rendered up to me, but I hope that you'll find it amusing enough to not begrudge the few seconds you invested in it.
-JA
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
The End of the Grand Christmas Romp
Isn’t it wonderful how punctual I am?
Anyway, in blog time, me and the family had just left for Salzburg. The train ride was uneventful, as we passed through the farmlands of Bavaria on a cloudy, windy day that was about to get a lot worse. We disembarked in Salzburg and walked into the Old City, about 15 minutes from the train station. Our first stop was the Mirabell Palace, built in the 18th century by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Wolf-Dietrich, for his mistress (Wolf-Dietrich was evidently a very naughty person). If you’ve seen “The Sound of Music”, the “Do Re Me” song finishes in the gardens of the Mirabell Palace, which we walked through. Unfortunately, it being the depths of winter, all vegetation and foliage was gone, and the bulk of the gardens, excepting a few perimeter paths, was chained off, presumably to keep stupid American tourists from trying to reenact “The Sound of Music.” We got a few good pictures of the High Citadel of Salzburg (it’s the huge castle in the webalbum photos) from the palace, before leaving the palace gardens and walking along the River Salzach, crossing it at the Müllnersteg footbridge, where I took a group photo (the 3rd picture in the webalbum).
We then climbed up Mönchsberg, one of the two small mountains that surround the Old City. Mönchsberg is basically shaped like a curved loaf of bread: it has sheer cliffs pretty much everywhere except on one end, which was where we climbed it. The mountain is driven through and through with tunnels, dug through the ages, beginning sometime around the 14th century. We climbed up an asphalt road which runs along the top of Mönchsberg, accessing all of the houses built there. Eventually we left the road to climb up a set of stairs before crossing a wooden bridge and going under an ancient gate, part of a medieval fortress (which is still very much in existence) protecting one of the two routes of access to the Citadel. Then our path took us up to the top of Mönchsberg, past some very pretty overlooks of the Old City, before going underneath the city wall, a massive edifice built in 1488 and still standing. The wall begins on the top of Mönchsberg, in a small castle, and circles around the Old City before coming to rest at the Citadel. We crossed through the wall and continued our walk, past houses and more small fortifications, before halting below the Citadel. We took some pictures, then proceeded by steep alleys into the Old City.
We wandered some time in the Christkindlmarkt, and ran into many of my fellow students, who were also spending the day in the city. Dad bought glühwein from the Lions’ Club booth, much to the consternation of Rose (who seems to think that glühwein is the root of all evils in the world) The Salzburg Christkindlmarkt is a well organized and long-established affair, with convenient maps of the three areas where the booths were set up, detailing each vendor and what they sold. By this time, the day was dwindling, the sky was overcast, and a bitter wind was blowing, so we took refuge in Café Tomaselli. The café was built in the early 18th century, and was one of the (then) new “Viennese coffeehouses”, and was something of a local curiosity when it was established. The interior was quite crowded but we found a table, and restored our strength with cakes, hot chocolate, and Café Tomasellium, a drink made from strong Turkish coffee, amaretto, and cream, garnished with whipped cream and toasted almonds. Afterwards, we crossed the river and climbed up Salzburg’s other mountain, the Kapuzinerberg. Kapuzinerberg is not nearly as developed as Mönchsberg, and is frequented by campers and hikers. We didn’t go very far, stopping at a Franciscan monastery perched on the side of the mountain (if you look at the webalbum, I took two pictures of a tan brick building surrounded by trees. That’s the monastery). After that, we walked back to the train station to find our train delayed, but only by 5 minutes. We traveled back to Munich in pitch darkness, ate in the Munich train station, and returned to our room quite thoroughly exhausted.
The next day we repacked, checked out, and took our train to Innsbruck. The day was wonderfully clear and sunny, giving everyone a beautiful view of the Alps from our compartment window. We got to the hotel in fine spirits, if a bit exhausted from lugging our baggage through Innsbruck and then up a steep and narrow lane (25 minutes all told). But the hotel more than satisfied everyone, and after we were all settled (the family in the hotel room, me back in my dorm) we toured through Innsbruck’s Old City and shopped around at the Christkindlmarkt, which was half-closed already, it being Christmas Eve. We made our plans for the evening, and then returned to our rooms.
We went to the English vigil mass at the Jesuit Church, a building of singular Baroque magnificence located in the heart of the Theological Faculty buildings. The mass was short, there being only around 30 people there, but not bad, and afterwards we hurried through the deserted streets of the Old City to our dinner reservations at the Weinhaus Happ, a hotel and restaurant located in the center of the Old City. The dinner was excellent, consisting of a carpaccio of squid and prosciutto ham for the appetizer, cream of arugula soup, salad, and our choice of roast beef or broiled carp for the main course, followed by a chestnut pastry, cookies, and a hot eggnog punch for dessert, all washed down with champaign and wines (riesling for Mom, and a rather dry red for me and dad). After the dinner was over, we went to bed stuffed to the proverbial gills.
The next day I walked to the hotel, and we exchanged presents, before taking a bus to visit my host family, the Gschliessers, in the town of Völs, about 15 minutes from Innsbruck. I don’t think I’ve explained the host family part of the Innsbruck program yet, and I have, then I’ll explain it again regardless. Every student is assigned a local family as host family, in order to help them get accustomed to the city and to make them more at home. Students regularly visit their families (I, for example, visit mine every Sunday for dinner) and the system is a very good one. We ate a sumptuous Christmas dinner with the Gschliessers: turkey, potatoes, salad, and all manner of good things. After dinner, barely able to move, we visited their church and the nativity scene therein, a very detailed piece of work. Then it was back to Innsbruck to walk through the city, shop a little, and then to bed.
The next morning it was decided that the family would take a later train to Munich, in order to have more time to see the city and bask in the beauty of the Alps. We visited the Cathedral, and saw the Jesuit Church in more detail, as well as the Christkindlmarkt, where we ate kirchl (see two blog posts ago for a description of this dish) and drank hot chocolate. Then we retrieved our luggage from the hotel and arrived at the train station to find the train over 80 minutes delayed. The delays increased as we waited on the platform, shivering in the crisp chill of the winter afternoon, until finally the train’s final destination was changed due to the delay. Fortunately, there was another train that we could take, but we ended up waiting over two and a half hours for it. The new train was on time, everyone got on board in plenty of time, and I waved them off as the train pulled out of the station. I walked back to my dorm, chilled through, and drank a good deal of tea to ward off the cold. I went to bed, and began my Christmas break, which can very easily be described as: great sloth interrupted by bouts of diligence.
Now the final month of term has started, and we’re all preparing for final exams and presentations in our classes, though the start has been slow due to one professor being quite ill and the other absent, although that will change next week as our noses meet a particularly spiky grindstone.
My pictures of the Christmas romp are up on the webalbum at
http://picasaweb.google.com/zerstorer.von.welten , as well as a particularly amusing waste of time which I made earlier this morning. Enjoy!
-JA
Anyway, in blog time, me and the family had just left for Salzburg. The train ride was uneventful, as we passed through the farmlands of Bavaria on a cloudy, windy day that was about to get a lot worse. We disembarked in Salzburg and walked into the Old City, about 15 minutes from the train station. Our first stop was the Mirabell Palace, built in the 18th century by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Wolf-Dietrich, for his mistress (Wolf-Dietrich was evidently a very naughty person). If you’ve seen “The Sound of Music”, the “Do Re Me” song finishes in the gardens of the Mirabell Palace, which we walked through. Unfortunately, it being the depths of winter, all vegetation and foliage was gone, and the bulk of the gardens, excepting a few perimeter paths, was chained off, presumably to keep stupid American tourists from trying to reenact “The Sound of Music.” We got a few good pictures of the High Citadel of Salzburg (it’s the huge castle in the webalbum photos) from the palace, before leaving the palace gardens and walking along the River Salzach, crossing it at the Müllnersteg footbridge, where I took a group photo (the 3rd picture in the webalbum).
We then climbed up Mönchsberg, one of the two small mountains that surround the Old City. Mönchsberg is basically shaped like a curved loaf of bread: it has sheer cliffs pretty much everywhere except on one end, which was where we climbed it. The mountain is driven through and through with tunnels, dug through the ages, beginning sometime around the 14th century. We climbed up an asphalt road which runs along the top of Mönchsberg, accessing all of the houses built there. Eventually we left the road to climb up a set of stairs before crossing a wooden bridge and going under an ancient gate, part of a medieval fortress (which is still very much in existence) protecting one of the two routes of access to the Citadel. Then our path took us up to the top of Mönchsberg, past some very pretty overlooks of the Old City, before going underneath the city wall, a massive edifice built in 1488 and still standing. The wall begins on the top of Mönchsberg, in a small castle, and circles around the Old City before coming to rest at the Citadel. We crossed through the wall and continued our walk, past houses and more small fortifications, before halting below the Citadel. We took some pictures, then proceeded by steep alleys into the Old City.
We wandered some time in the Christkindlmarkt, and ran into many of my fellow students, who were also spending the day in the city. Dad bought glühwein from the Lions’ Club booth, much to the consternation of Rose (who seems to think that glühwein is the root of all evils in the world) The Salzburg Christkindlmarkt is a well organized and long-established affair, with convenient maps of the three areas where the booths were set up, detailing each vendor and what they sold. By this time, the day was dwindling, the sky was overcast, and a bitter wind was blowing, so we took refuge in Café Tomaselli. The café was built in the early 18th century, and was one of the (then) new “Viennese coffeehouses”, and was something of a local curiosity when it was established. The interior was quite crowded but we found a table, and restored our strength with cakes, hot chocolate, and Café Tomasellium, a drink made from strong Turkish coffee, amaretto, and cream, garnished with whipped cream and toasted almonds. Afterwards, we crossed the river and climbed up Salzburg’s other mountain, the Kapuzinerberg. Kapuzinerberg is not nearly as developed as Mönchsberg, and is frequented by campers and hikers. We didn’t go very far, stopping at a Franciscan monastery perched on the side of the mountain (if you look at the webalbum, I took two pictures of a tan brick building surrounded by trees. That’s the monastery). After that, we walked back to the train station to find our train delayed, but only by 5 minutes. We traveled back to Munich in pitch darkness, ate in the Munich train station, and returned to our room quite thoroughly exhausted.
The next day we repacked, checked out, and took our train to Innsbruck. The day was wonderfully clear and sunny, giving everyone a beautiful view of the Alps from our compartment window. We got to the hotel in fine spirits, if a bit exhausted from lugging our baggage through Innsbruck and then up a steep and narrow lane (25 minutes all told). But the hotel more than satisfied everyone, and after we were all settled (the family in the hotel room, me back in my dorm) we toured through Innsbruck’s Old City and shopped around at the Christkindlmarkt, which was half-closed already, it being Christmas Eve. We made our plans for the evening, and then returned to our rooms.
We went to the English vigil mass at the Jesuit Church, a building of singular Baroque magnificence located in the heart of the Theological Faculty buildings. The mass was short, there being only around 30 people there, but not bad, and afterwards we hurried through the deserted streets of the Old City to our dinner reservations at the Weinhaus Happ, a hotel and restaurant located in the center of the Old City. The dinner was excellent, consisting of a carpaccio of squid and prosciutto ham for the appetizer, cream of arugula soup, salad, and our choice of roast beef or broiled carp for the main course, followed by a chestnut pastry, cookies, and a hot eggnog punch for dessert, all washed down with champaign and wines (riesling for Mom, and a rather dry red for me and dad). After the dinner was over, we went to bed stuffed to the proverbial gills.
The next day I walked to the hotel, and we exchanged presents, before taking a bus to visit my host family, the Gschliessers, in the town of Völs, about 15 minutes from Innsbruck. I don’t think I’ve explained the host family part of the Innsbruck program yet, and I have, then I’ll explain it again regardless. Every student is assigned a local family as host family, in order to help them get accustomed to the city and to make them more at home. Students regularly visit their families (I, for example, visit mine every Sunday for dinner) and the system is a very good one. We ate a sumptuous Christmas dinner with the Gschliessers: turkey, potatoes, salad, and all manner of good things. After dinner, barely able to move, we visited their church and the nativity scene therein, a very detailed piece of work. Then it was back to Innsbruck to walk through the city, shop a little, and then to bed.
The next morning it was decided that the family would take a later train to Munich, in order to have more time to see the city and bask in the beauty of the Alps. We visited the Cathedral, and saw the Jesuit Church in more detail, as well as the Christkindlmarkt, where we ate kirchl (see two blog posts ago for a description of this dish) and drank hot chocolate. Then we retrieved our luggage from the hotel and arrived at the train station to find the train over 80 minutes delayed. The delays increased as we waited on the platform, shivering in the crisp chill of the winter afternoon, until finally the train’s final destination was changed due to the delay. Fortunately, there was another train that we could take, but we ended up waiting over two and a half hours for it. The new train was on time, everyone got on board in plenty of time, and I waved them off as the train pulled out of the station. I walked back to my dorm, chilled through, and drank a good deal of tea to ward off the cold. I went to bed, and began my Christmas break, which can very easily be described as: great sloth interrupted by bouts of diligence.
Now the final month of term has started, and we’re all preparing for final exams and presentations in our classes, though the start has been slow due to one professor being quite ill and the other absent, although that will change next week as our noses meet a particularly spiky grindstone.
My pictures of the Christmas romp are up on the webalbum at
http://picasaweb.google.com/zerstorer.von.welten , as well as a particularly amusing waste of time which I made earlier this morning. Enjoy!
-JA
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
5 "Days" in Munich
Writing from memory is always a pain in the ass. Events get jumbled and twisted, continuity is snarled and blurred in a haze of good cheer, embarrassment, and time, and the whole course of the history being written is changed in the recollection. Still, since I was too lazy or occupied to write down events as they happened in Munich, I’ll have to settle for this solution instead. I’m going to condense the events of the 20th, 21st, and 22nd into one entry. This will cover all of my time in Munich. Then, there will be another entry, probably quite short, covering our day trip to Salzburg on the 23rd, and then a third entry for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day (the 26th of December for Americans and other aliens).
I arrived in Munich about 15 minutes delayed for one reason or another (European train conductors never tell you the reason for any delay, but personally I blame a combination of weather and Italians) to find my family waiting for me in the train station. Their hotel room wasn’t ready, so they had decided to come and wait for me their, which was a good thing because the hotel didn’t have much to speak of in the way of a lobby. We ate a quick lunch at the airport, dining on kebaps. These sandwiches, which have nothing to do with shish-kabob, are the German/Austrian equivalent of a hamburger, and arrived in Europe thanks to the wave of Turkish immigration in the 1990s. A kebap is a sandwich composed of a kaiser roll, or equivalent bun product, stuffed with roasted sliced lamb or turkey, yogurt sauce, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes. It’s not all that good for you, but satisfying in the same way that a McDonald’s hamburger is satisfying (that is, up until about 2 hours after the fact).
We proceeded to the hotel under a threatening sky which was probably the tail end of the snowstorm I had experienced coming out of Austria. Bavaria, the region of Germany where Munich is located, is primarily plains and forests, with a few mountains in the south called the Bavarian Alps. The storm, it seemed, had been trapped by the true Austrian Alps, and so left Munich with rain, damp, and cold. After settling into the room, I, Mom, and Hannah went for a walk to the Munich Christkindlmarkt, which proved hideously overcrowded. We stopped for a few pictures before heading back to the hotel. That night we had dinner with an old colleague of Dad’s, Thomas Pruegl, and his family, who served us one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten: dumplings in beef broth, roast pork and more dumplings (but of a different variety), and cabbage salad. We went home that night tired and stuffed to the gills.
The next morning we breakfasted at the hotel, under the watchful eyes of the breakfast chef/waitress person, a severe woman with an unending flow of sarcasm (in several languages) who soon garnered the nickname of “Frau Harrumph” from me and my sisters. Then it was time for mass at the cathedral, and then for a walk around the city center. The Christkindlmarkt was just starting up when we arrived, so we walked through the Rathaus, the “town hall” of Munich, although it was quite grand and gothic, looking more like a cathedral than anything else. Afterwards (at around 1:30) we embarked for the Alte Pinakothek, one of Munich’s three famous art museums. The Alte Pinakothek (which is mostly untranslatable, but which means something like “Collection of Old Paintings”) houses works from the late Middle Ages through the 18th Century; the Neue Pinakothek (“Collection of New Paintings”) is devoted to the 19th Century, and the Pinakothek der Moderne (“Collection of Paintings of the Modern Artists) has 20th Century works. We only saw the Alte, which houses no particularly famous work, but many minor works by famous painters (Rubens, Dürer, Raphael, and Da Vinci) as well as a particularly expansive collection of 17th and 18th century art, especially from France and the Netherlands.
That took us most of the afternoon, until about 5 o’clock. We then departed to find a restaurant that Dad had read of which served authentic Bavarian food. The search took us well over an hour, as it was quite dark and the restaurant was located in a small square off the beaten path. It was also closed, unsurprisingly, since it was a Sunday (when nearly all shops and stores are closed). We instead went to the Ratskeller, a restaurant in the basement of the Rathaus. While expensive, the food was superb if rather hard to describe. The menu was entirely in German, and contained a lot of Bavarian-dialect terms that I was unfamiliar with. Still, it turned out well, and we dined on plates of sausages, sauerkraut, tiny dumplings in a cheese sauce in Rose’s case, and Wiener Schnitzel (a cut of tender veal, pounded thin and deep fried) in Hannah’s. Stuffed to the gills again, we walked around the Christkindlmarkt for awhile and took a few pictures before returning to the hotel.
The next day a bitterly cold wind blew, rather than the drizzle of the day before. We went to the Toy Museum, which was rather unconventionally housed in an old tower, with each exhibit located in rooms off of the tight circular stairwell. It was an amusing side trip, and certainly nothing like what you’d find in the US. After the Toy Museum, we took a detour to the Asamkirche (officially the Church of St. John Nepomuk, but nicknamed Asam after the two brothers who designed and built it). While small, the church is crammed with every bit of Baroque finery that could fit: painted ceilings and walls, gold and silver ornamentation, and marble statues. Everything on the walls and ceilings that isn’t a painting is gold or silver, and my poor skill with words cannot possibly do it justice. Check out the webalbum for more pictures.
The Asamkirche was followed by a shopping expedition to the Christkindlmarkt, in which Dad tried glühwein for the first time and started a long-running joke which I’m sure will be with our family until the end of time, and in which I made a rather elementary mistake in my German and which lead to subsequent embarrassment (although, like all good mistakes, I don’t think I’m likely to repeat it in the near future). Around 4, we returned to the hotel, cold and somewhat cranky, and didn’t leave the room except for one expedition to the train station to buy some pizza. Then we bedded down for the night, determined to get a good rest for our trip to Salzburg the next day.
Next, on Cage of Monkeys: What happened in Salzburg! Strange Meetings! Long Walks! Tourists! And the Lions Club! Tune in tomorrow, same Monkey Time, same Monkey Channel!
-JA
I arrived in Munich about 15 minutes delayed for one reason or another (European train conductors never tell you the reason for any delay, but personally I blame a combination of weather and Italians) to find my family waiting for me in the train station. Their hotel room wasn’t ready, so they had decided to come and wait for me their, which was a good thing because the hotel didn’t have much to speak of in the way of a lobby. We ate a quick lunch at the airport, dining on kebaps. These sandwiches, which have nothing to do with shish-kabob, are the German/Austrian equivalent of a hamburger, and arrived in Europe thanks to the wave of Turkish immigration in the 1990s. A kebap is a sandwich composed of a kaiser roll, or equivalent bun product, stuffed with roasted sliced lamb or turkey, yogurt sauce, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes. It’s not all that good for you, but satisfying in the same way that a McDonald’s hamburger is satisfying (that is, up until about 2 hours after the fact).
We proceeded to the hotel under a threatening sky which was probably the tail end of the snowstorm I had experienced coming out of Austria. Bavaria, the region of Germany where Munich is located, is primarily plains and forests, with a few mountains in the south called the Bavarian Alps. The storm, it seemed, had been trapped by the true Austrian Alps, and so left Munich with rain, damp, and cold. After settling into the room, I, Mom, and Hannah went for a walk to the Munich Christkindlmarkt, which proved hideously overcrowded. We stopped for a few pictures before heading back to the hotel. That night we had dinner with an old colleague of Dad’s, Thomas Pruegl, and his family, who served us one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten: dumplings in beef broth, roast pork and more dumplings (but of a different variety), and cabbage salad. We went home that night tired and stuffed to the gills.
The next morning we breakfasted at the hotel, under the watchful eyes of the breakfast chef/waitress person, a severe woman with an unending flow of sarcasm (in several languages) who soon garnered the nickname of “Frau Harrumph” from me and my sisters. Then it was time for mass at the cathedral, and then for a walk around the city center. The Christkindlmarkt was just starting up when we arrived, so we walked through the Rathaus, the “town hall” of Munich, although it was quite grand and gothic, looking more like a cathedral than anything else. Afterwards (at around 1:30) we embarked for the Alte Pinakothek, one of Munich’s three famous art museums. The Alte Pinakothek (which is mostly untranslatable, but which means something like “Collection of Old Paintings”) houses works from the late Middle Ages through the 18th Century; the Neue Pinakothek (“Collection of New Paintings”) is devoted to the 19th Century, and the Pinakothek der Moderne (“Collection of Paintings of the Modern Artists) has 20th Century works. We only saw the Alte, which houses no particularly famous work, but many minor works by famous painters (Rubens, Dürer, Raphael, and Da Vinci) as well as a particularly expansive collection of 17th and 18th century art, especially from France and the Netherlands.
That took us most of the afternoon, until about 5 o’clock. We then departed to find a restaurant that Dad had read of which served authentic Bavarian food. The search took us well over an hour, as it was quite dark and the restaurant was located in a small square off the beaten path. It was also closed, unsurprisingly, since it was a Sunday (when nearly all shops and stores are closed). We instead went to the Ratskeller, a restaurant in the basement of the Rathaus. While expensive, the food was superb if rather hard to describe. The menu was entirely in German, and contained a lot of Bavarian-dialect terms that I was unfamiliar with. Still, it turned out well, and we dined on plates of sausages, sauerkraut, tiny dumplings in a cheese sauce in Rose’s case, and Wiener Schnitzel (a cut of tender veal, pounded thin and deep fried) in Hannah’s. Stuffed to the gills again, we walked around the Christkindlmarkt for awhile and took a few pictures before returning to the hotel.
The next day a bitterly cold wind blew, rather than the drizzle of the day before. We went to the Toy Museum, which was rather unconventionally housed in an old tower, with each exhibit located in rooms off of the tight circular stairwell. It was an amusing side trip, and certainly nothing like what you’d find in the US. After the Toy Museum, we took a detour to the Asamkirche (officially the Church of St. John Nepomuk, but nicknamed Asam after the two brothers who designed and built it). While small, the church is crammed with every bit of Baroque finery that could fit: painted ceilings and walls, gold and silver ornamentation, and marble statues. Everything on the walls and ceilings that isn’t a painting is gold or silver, and my poor skill with words cannot possibly do it justice. Check out the webalbum for more pictures.
The Asamkirche was followed by a shopping expedition to the Christkindlmarkt, in which Dad tried glühwein for the first time and started a long-running joke which I’m sure will be with our family until the end of time, and in which I made a rather elementary mistake in my German and which lead to subsequent embarrassment (although, like all good mistakes, I don’t think I’m likely to repeat it in the near future). Around 4, we returned to the hotel, cold and somewhat cranky, and didn’t leave the room except for one expedition to the train station to buy some pizza. Then we bedded down for the night, determined to get a good rest for our trip to Salzburg the next day.
Next, on Cage of Monkeys: What happened in Salzburg! Strange Meetings! Long Walks! Tourists! And the Lions Club! Tune in tomorrow, same Monkey Time, same Monkey Channel!
-JA
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Achtung! Achtung! The Cage of Monkeys Christmas Special!
[Author’s Note: This entry was intended to be published on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve. It was not. Those responsible for this delay (the author’s bottle of scotch and his video games) have been sacked. This entry was completed with great expense and at the last minute with new assistance (a bag of coffee beans and hot water). We thank you for your understanding.]
Well, it’s that time of year, again. I hope that everyone who reads this is having a great holiday season, free from St. Stephen’s Day murders and the like. I’m going to be celebrating Christmas in Innsbruck with my family, but first we’re going to be spending time in Munich, Regensburg, and Salzburg. Blog entries for those days (the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd) will follow as I write them, and they’ll probably go up sometime after Christmas. This entry will go up on the 24th if I remember to post it; if not, then it will go up afterwards. Now, seeing as I’m writing this on a train (again. Funny how it seems I can only ever write this blog if I’m on a train or in train station), and there’s nothing really interesting going on (we’re waiting somewhere in the northern foothills of the Alps, delayed by the blizzard that is currently sweeping the land), I though I might beef up this post with a few observations and anecdotes on how Austrians celebrate Christmas.
Firstly, it’s important that you understand that Austria is (I believe) 65% Catholic and around 85% Christian, so there’s none of the American attempts at political correctness. You’ll see no “seasons’s greetings” or “happy holidays” in Innsbruck; rather, the shops will have signs reading “Frohe Weihnachten!” (Merry Christmas, in German), and every city or village has its own Christkindlmarkt (Christ Child Market. More on that later). There’s also no Santas, or elves, or reindeer, or any of that foolishness (explained by the Austrian belief that the Christ Child brings the presents on Christmas Eve). There’s the inevitable consumerism that you can’t escape anywhere that comes with the season: stores in the city’s shopping center have signs for “Das Merry-Xmas-Special” or “Das Christmas-Sale” (in keeping with the tradition of borrowing English words for advertisements, a trend which is inexplicably omnipresent in the German-speaking world).
For Austrians, the Christmas season begins on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent, when the Christkindlmarkts open. Every city and village has its own Christkindlmarkt, usually located in the oldest part of town, populated by vendors who are either prepare everything they sell by themselves, or who are representatives of a bigger store (this latter being obviously more present in cities like Innsbruck). Every year they load brown wooden kiosks or booths onto rented trailers and set themselves up in a rented spot. In cities with larger Christkindlmarkts, it looks as though a small village of people living in curiously kitschy houses has suddenly invaded the city.
What’s for sale falls into three different categories (usually): decorations, clothing, and FOOD. This last cannot be understated: the number of food booths at the Innsbruck Christkindlmarkt makes up roughly half the number of total vendors (by my rough estimate). The food is, in Innsbruck’s case, traditional Austrian winter dishes and drinks. There are the meats: all kinds of sausage (bratwürst, krainerwürst, knackwürst, extrawürst made from leftover bits of animal, blutwürst made from reduced blood), speck (a Tirolian term encompassing any kind of meat which is dried, salted, smoked, or any combination of the three), and other less appealing dishes (baked brain, intestines stuffed with speck, bull’s testicles). There are the starches: knödel (the Austrian dumpling, served either in soup or by itself, and coming in a wonderment of varieties, most famously spinach, cheese, and speck); krapfen (the Austrian equivalent of a doughnut, but better); and kirchl (my personal favorite, a puffed pastry shaped like a bowl and topped with sauerkraut, mountain cranberry jam, or powdered sugar). To wash all this down, the vendors will be more than happy to sell you coffee, hot chocolate, punch, beer, wine, prosecco, or glühwein, a cousin of mulled wine made by heating wine in a cauldron with two clove-studded oranges, and then adding sugar, more cloves, cinnamon, tea, and perhaps a dram or two of the local moonshine. Not a drink for the weak-of-stomach!
Once you have stuffed yourself, there’s still another half of the Christkindlmarkt left. Here you can buy scarves, sweaters, hats, and mittens; slippers, jewelry, nativity scenes, and kitsch of all forms. Generally, these items are not as untrustworthy as one might expect, although this benefit comes with a corresponding price hike. Expect expense, but the stuff won’t fall apart on you the minute you leave the city.
After the first Sunday of Advent, the Christkindlmarkt infiltrates all available corners of the city, and Austrians settle down for the feast of St. Nicholas. The mythos surrounding Nicholas is a bit different than it is in America. Rather than being attended by Rupert, his chimney-sweep servant, Nicholaus comes to the cities of Austria attended by a horde of Krampuse. The Krampus is a demon which delivers the naughty boys and girls bundles of sticks on St. Nicholas day, and is one of the things that young Austrian children live in fear of (eat your dinner or the Krampus will get you!) On the 5th of December, there is a great procession from the Church of St. Nicholas in the northern part of Innsbruck to the Cathedral of St. Jacob in the city center. Afterwards, the Krampuse (young men dressed in furry, horned demon suits) run through the city, whacking bemused passers-by and bystanders with bundles of reeds or sticks. The next morning, all the children receive sweets, nuts, and oranges in their shoes (which they leave by their front door the night beforehand), and those few silly people who decided it would be a good idea to hit a Krampus back (guess what? It isn’t) nurse their well-deserved welts. The weekend closest to the feast of St. Nicholas, around 30,000 Italians cram themselves into buses and invade the city and the Christkindlmarkt, while sensible Austrians stay at home.
The Austrian house is much like the American one at Christmas-time. There is a tree (although the Austrians decorate theirs with candles rather than colored light bulbs, and generally don’t have pounds of ornaments decorating every available square inch of branch and needle), and the Austrians also decorate their houses (although their decorations would probably be considered humorless, spartan, and severely lacking in holiday spirit by most Americans. Do not expect to see a light display which requires several African nations to power, or inflatable figures waiting to be popped by a drunk youth with a BB gun). Altogether, I would say that Austrians approach Christmas with a more sensible and definitely more devout frame of mind than we Americans.
On Christmas Eve (known as Heiliger Abend, or Holy Evening), some Austrians go to mass, either around 8 o’clock or at midnight, but most of them go to mass on Christmas day (here called Christtag, Christ Day) after their children have shredded wrapping paper, opened gifts, and wallowed in pure and unadulterated joy for awhile. Most families have a huge dinner at around 1 in the afternoon, replete with roast ducks and geese, as well as other Austrian cuisine (knödel, speck, and so forth). Wine is drunk, food is eaten, and everyone retires to sleep soundly through the night.
Well, my train’s pulling in now. Regardless of whatever faith or non-faith you subscribe to, Dear Reader, I would enjoin you to meditate on this: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Merry Christmas everyone!
-JA
Well, it’s that time of year, again. I hope that everyone who reads this is having a great holiday season, free from St. Stephen’s Day murders and the like. I’m going to be celebrating Christmas in Innsbruck with my family, but first we’re going to be spending time in Munich, Regensburg, and Salzburg. Blog entries for those days (the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd) will follow as I write them, and they’ll probably go up sometime after Christmas. This entry will go up on the 24th if I remember to post it; if not, then it will go up afterwards. Now, seeing as I’m writing this on a train (again. Funny how it seems I can only ever write this blog if I’m on a train or in train station), and there’s nothing really interesting going on (we’re waiting somewhere in the northern foothills of the Alps, delayed by the blizzard that is currently sweeping the land), I though I might beef up this post with a few observations and anecdotes on how Austrians celebrate Christmas.
Firstly, it’s important that you understand that Austria is (I believe) 65% Catholic and around 85% Christian, so there’s none of the American attempts at political correctness. You’ll see no “seasons’s greetings” or “happy holidays” in Innsbruck; rather, the shops will have signs reading “Frohe Weihnachten!” (Merry Christmas, in German), and every city or village has its own Christkindlmarkt (Christ Child Market. More on that later). There’s also no Santas, or elves, or reindeer, or any of that foolishness (explained by the Austrian belief that the Christ Child brings the presents on Christmas Eve). There’s the inevitable consumerism that you can’t escape anywhere that comes with the season: stores in the city’s shopping center have signs for “Das Merry-Xmas-Special” or “Das Christmas-Sale” (in keeping with the tradition of borrowing English words for advertisements, a trend which is inexplicably omnipresent in the German-speaking world).
For Austrians, the Christmas season begins on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent, when the Christkindlmarkts open. Every city and village has its own Christkindlmarkt, usually located in the oldest part of town, populated by vendors who are either prepare everything they sell by themselves, or who are representatives of a bigger store (this latter being obviously more present in cities like Innsbruck). Every year they load brown wooden kiosks or booths onto rented trailers and set themselves up in a rented spot. In cities with larger Christkindlmarkts, it looks as though a small village of people living in curiously kitschy houses has suddenly invaded the city.
What’s for sale falls into three different categories (usually): decorations, clothing, and FOOD. This last cannot be understated: the number of food booths at the Innsbruck Christkindlmarkt makes up roughly half the number of total vendors (by my rough estimate). The food is, in Innsbruck’s case, traditional Austrian winter dishes and drinks. There are the meats: all kinds of sausage (bratwürst, krainerwürst, knackwürst, extrawürst made from leftover bits of animal, blutwürst made from reduced blood), speck (a Tirolian term encompassing any kind of meat which is dried, salted, smoked, or any combination of the three), and other less appealing dishes (baked brain, intestines stuffed with speck, bull’s testicles). There are the starches: knödel (the Austrian dumpling, served either in soup or by itself, and coming in a wonderment of varieties, most famously spinach, cheese, and speck); krapfen (the Austrian equivalent of a doughnut, but better); and kirchl (my personal favorite, a puffed pastry shaped like a bowl and topped with sauerkraut, mountain cranberry jam, or powdered sugar). To wash all this down, the vendors will be more than happy to sell you coffee, hot chocolate, punch, beer, wine, prosecco, or glühwein, a cousin of mulled wine made by heating wine in a cauldron with two clove-studded oranges, and then adding sugar, more cloves, cinnamon, tea, and perhaps a dram or two of the local moonshine. Not a drink for the weak-of-stomach!
Once you have stuffed yourself, there’s still another half of the Christkindlmarkt left. Here you can buy scarves, sweaters, hats, and mittens; slippers, jewelry, nativity scenes, and kitsch of all forms. Generally, these items are not as untrustworthy as one might expect, although this benefit comes with a corresponding price hike. Expect expense, but the stuff won’t fall apart on you the minute you leave the city.
After the first Sunday of Advent, the Christkindlmarkt infiltrates all available corners of the city, and Austrians settle down for the feast of St. Nicholas. The mythos surrounding Nicholas is a bit different than it is in America. Rather than being attended by Rupert, his chimney-sweep servant, Nicholaus comes to the cities of Austria attended by a horde of Krampuse. The Krampus is a demon which delivers the naughty boys and girls bundles of sticks on St. Nicholas day, and is one of the things that young Austrian children live in fear of (eat your dinner or the Krampus will get you!) On the 5th of December, there is a great procession from the Church of St. Nicholas in the northern part of Innsbruck to the Cathedral of St. Jacob in the city center. Afterwards, the Krampuse (young men dressed in furry, horned demon suits) run through the city, whacking bemused passers-by and bystanders with bundles of reeds or sticks. The next morning, all the children receive sweets, nuts, and oranges in their shoes (which they leave by their front door the night beforehand), and those few silly people who decided it would be a good idea to hit a Krampus back (guess what? It isn’t) nurse their well-deserved welts. The weekend closest to the feast of St. Nicholas, around 30,000 Italians cram themselves into buses and invade the city and the Christkindlmarkt, while sensible Austrians stay at home.
The Austrian house is much like the American one at Christmas-time. There is a tree (although the Austrians decorate theirs with candles rather than colored light bulbs, and generally don’t have pounds of ornaments decorating every available square inch of branch and needle), and the Austrians also decorate their houses (although their decorations would probably be considered humorless, spartan, and severely lacking in holiday spirit by most Americans. Do not expect to see a light display which requires several African nations to power, or inflatable figures waiting to be popped by a drunk youth with a BB gun). Altogether, I would say that Austrians approach Christmas with a more sensible and definitely more devout frame of mind than we Americans.
On Christmas Eve (known as Heiliger Abend, or Holy Evening), some Austrians go to mass, either around 8 o’clock or at midnight, but most of them go to mass on Christmas day (here called Christtag, Christ Day) after their children have shredded wrapping paper, opened gifts, and wallowed in pure and unadulterated joy for awhile. Most families have a huge dinner at around 1 in the afternoon, replete with roast ducks and geese, as well as other Austrian cuisine (knödel, speck, and so forth). Wine is drunk, food is eaten, and everyone retires to sleep soundly through the night.
Well, my train’s pulling in now. Regardless of whatever faith or non-faith you subscribe to, Dear Reader, I would enjoin you to meditate on this: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Merry Christmas everyone!
-JA
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Ooohh! Look at me! I'm not dead!
Oi.
Sorry about the absolute lack of updates on the blog. Life has been running its typical interference patterns and what with one thing and another, the blog has kind of fallen by the wayside. That's going to change, I promise. With Thanksgiving break this weekend and no classes on Monday I'll have time to catch up on the stuff that needs doing and publish a couple updates.
If there is anything that you would particularly like to know about Innsbruck or life over here in general, send me an email at jashley1(at)nd(dot)edu.
Until then, check the webalbum out! I recently uploaded a buttload of pictures taken this fall. As ever, the webalbum can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/zerstorer.von.welten/
-JA
Sorry about the absolute lack of updates on the blog. Life has been running its typical interference patterns and what with one thing and another, the blog has kind of fallen by the wayside. That's going to change, I promise. With Thanksgiving break this weekend and no classes on Monday I'll have time to catch up on the stuff that needs doing and publish a couple updates.
If there is anything that you would particularly like to know about Innsbruck or life over here in general, send me an email at jashley1(at)nd(dot)edu.
Until then, check the webalbum out! I recently uploaded a buttload of pictures taken this fall. As ever, the webalbum can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/zerstorer.von.welten/
-JA
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Nuremberg
My first train to Nuremberg arrived early for a nice change. Also welcome was my accommodation on board. Being poor I had booked the cheapest seats available. On the train to Düsseldorf, this meant a non-reclining chair in a compartment with two snoring Austrians who had accidentally boarded the wrong train. This time around, though, it was a reclining chair not unlike those employed by dentist, although infinitely more comfortable. My ride lasted five and a half hours, with my train arriving early at Karlsruhe where I had my first connection. My second train lasted a brief 45 minutes, from Karlsruhe to Stuttgart, and my third train two hours from Stuttgart to Nuremberg.
Thus I arrived at Nuremberg at 8:15 this morning (this being, again, the 29th of September), not as tired as I had thought I would be. I hung out in the Nuremberg train station for another two hours before depositing my luggage in a locker and starting my tour.
While Münster had, temperature-wise, ranged from brisk to annoyingly cold, Nuremberg was freezing. I remember seeing frost on the fields as I headed towards Nuremberg on my train, and the weather did not abate once I reached the city.
Nuremberg itself is not especially large, but all of the things that I wanted two see were located within five minutes’ walk of each other. This meant that I spend about 3 hours total seeing and photographing things and about 2 hours sitting on benches and reading. Still, the things that I saw were all excellent, considering the condition in which the city left World War II.. Like Münster, Nuremberg had been pretty badly savaged during the war, and most of the Altstadt was obliterated. However, everything that had been destroyed was rebuilt as it had been before, and there is still a great number of structures on the city’s periphery that survived the bombings. These include the city’s walls, which mostly encircle it, and the Imperial Castle, which is located at the northernmost edge of the Altstadt.
I walked first through the southern half of the city, passing by some of Nuremberg’s famous fountains, such as the Fountain of Virtue and the Carousel of Married Life Fountain. This last is too crazy for words, but I took plenty of pictures so you all can see exactly how strange it was. I crossed the Pegnitz by means of the Executioner’s Way, a covered bridge which lead to an island in the river. This same island used to be the residing-place of the city’s executioner, who by virtue of his employment was deemed unfit to live with the rest of the citizenry.
I crossed the river again to come to the Beethoven Monument, and then took a winding path that followed the city walls. The path eventually lead me to the Imperial Castle by way of Albrecht Dürer’s house. The castle was quite imposing, built from local sandstone. In places, the walls had simply been carved out of the cliffs, interrupting the regular geometry of the wall-blocks with their organic flow. I went up and into the castle courtyard before turning back and walking down the hill toward the Hauptmarkt. The Hauptmarkt is a massive gathering-place for any kind of small business which can occupy tents. I saw everything from paprika to beer steins to vacuum cleaners on sale there. The Hauptmarkt is bordered on the west by the Frauenkirche and on the north by the Sebalduskirche. The Sebalduskirche was very nearly demolished by Allied bombers, but was totally reconstructed within ten years of its destruction. Today the church, like the Paulusdom in Münster, has part of Coventry Cathedral enshrined within; in this case a cross forged from some of the nails used in the construction of the cathedral.
I ended my tour of Nuremberg by crossing the Museumsbrücke before heading back to the train station. My train arrives in two hours now, and I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed again. Classes start on the 7th of October, and I’m glad of a chance to rest and recover before I tackle the challenge of college in German.
Catch you all on the flip side.
-JA
Thus I arrived at Nuremberg at 8:15 this morning (this being, again, the 29th of September), not as tired as I had thought I would be. I hung out in the Nuremberg train station for another two hours before depositing my luggage in a locker and starting my tour.
While Münster had, temperature-wise, ranged from brisk to annoyingly cold, Nuremberg was freezing. I remember seeing frost on the fields as I headed towards Nuremberg on my train, and the weather did not abate once I reached the city.
Nuremberg itself is not especially large, but all of the things that I wanted two see were located within five minutes’ walk of each other. This meant that I spend about 3 hours total seeing and photographing things and about 2 hours sitting on benches and reading. Still, the things that I saw were all excellent, considering the condition in which the city left World War II.. Like Münster, Nuremberg had been pretty badly savaged during the war, and most of the Altstadt was obliterated. However, everything that had been destroyed was rebuilt as it had been before, and there is still a great number of structures on the city’s periphery that survived the bombings. These include the city’s walls, which mostly encircle it, and the Imperial Castle, which is located at the northernmost edge of the Altstadt.
I walked first through the southern half of the city, passing by some of Nuremberg’s famous fountains, such as the Fountain of Virtue and the Carousel of Married Life Fountain. This last is too crazy for words, but I took plenty of pictures so you all can see exactly how strange it was. I crossed the Pegnitz by means of the Executioner’s Way, a covered bridge which lead to an island in the river. This same island used to be the residing-place of the city’s executioner, who by virtue of his employment was deemed unfit to live with the rest of the citizenry.
I crossed the river again to come to the Beethoven Monument, and then took a winding path that followed the city walls. The path eventually lead me to the Imperial Castle by way of Albrecht Dürer’s house. The castle was quite imposing, built from local sandstone. In places, the walls had simply been carved out of the cliffs, interrupting the regular geometry of the wall-blocks with their organic flow. I went up and into the castle courtyard before turning back and walking down the hill toward the Hauptmarkt. The Hauptmarkt is a massive gathering-place for any kind of small business which can occupy tents. I saw everything from paprika to beer steins to vacuum cleaners on sale there. The Hauptmarkt is bordered on the west by the Frauenkirche and on the north by the Sebalduskirche. The Sebalduskirche was very nearly demolished by Allied bombers, but was totally reconstructed within ten years of its destruction. Today the church, like the Paulusdom in Münster, has part of Coventry Cathedral enshrined within; in this case a cross forged from some of the nails used in the construction of the cathedral.
I ended my tour of Nuremberg by crossing the Museumsbrücke before heading back to the train station. My train arrives in two hours now, and I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed again. Classes start on the 7th of October, and I’m glad of a chance to rest and recover before I tackle the challenge of college in German.
Catch you all on the flip side.
-JA
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Münster (and Ahaus)
Well my fall break is already winding down, surprising as that sounds. Right now I’m in the Nuremberg train station killing a couple of hours before my train arrives. By 9:45 tonight (the 29th of September, that is) I’ll be back in by dorm in Innsbruck, tired and looking forward to four or five days of unwinding. So it’s time to update my blog with records of my trips.
First off: Münster. I took a long night train to Düsseldorf to meet Dad, with the intention that we would then travel to Münster. Unfortunately, the mighty Deutsche Bahn (the German railway system) failed me. My train was delayed for over two hours, and I almost missed Dad in the airport. But I ran into him just as he was about to leave for Münster, so all’s well that ends well. We arrived in Münster went to our hotel, the Tryp Kongresshotel. While it certainly wasn’t as nice as the Heffterhof in Salzburg, it was by no means incommodious. We napped, then toured the city before having dinner at a local restaurant.
The next day we rose bright and early to go to Metz’s birthday celebration in Ahaus, a tiny city north of Münster. (A note to my readers who aren’t part of my immediate family: Johann Baptist Metz is a venerable and famous German political theologian. Dad wrote his dissertation on Metz way the hell back in the late 80s/early 90s, and the two of them are fast friends. In fact, Dad has recently published a new translation of one of Metz’s works). The trip by car took us about an hour and a half on the way there, and we passed through terrain that would not have looked out of place in Ohio or Indiana: pancake-flat farmland with the occasional forest. The only difference were the wind turbines, which sprout out of the fields like great columnar trees.
The celebration itself (or, as the invitation put it, the “Theological Matinee”) took place in a Wasserschloss, a small Baroque palace surrounded by a moat-like pond. Apparently it was quite the vogue to build these things in northern Germany during the 18th century. This Wasserschloss is now owned by the city of Ahaus and is used as a kind of more stylish convention center.
The “Theological Matinee” opened with a series of speeches by friends of Metz. Naturally, these speeches were rather academic and were entirely in German, meaning that I understood them as much as I can write in Ogham. Each speech was separated from the next by a piece of piano music performed by a Prof. Dr. Tanski of the Mozarteum (the University of Salzburg’s formidable music school). The pieces were quite enjoyable, especially the last which poked fun at every Romantic composer from Beethoven to Strauss.
Afterwards there was an Imbiss, a German term for a quick meal, of stew, bread, pretzels, and dried meet, washed down with water, juice, or beer. Dad was able for the first to try a Radler, a German beverage made half of pilsner and half of lemonade. While by now means as alcoholic as a regular beer, a Radler is wonderfully refreshing on a hot day. I could spring for one now, because the Nuremberg train station is heated to Carroll-Hall levels (i.e., with many fiery furnaces).
After the Imbiss, it was back to Münster, where we had dinner with Metz and some of the guests of the matinee. The dinner, which was held in the Hotel Feldmann in the center of Münster, was also enjoyable, though the conversation was once again in German. My own skills served my a adequately, though I was forced to use English whenever I wanted to get a complicated point across. The food was served in suitably Germanic proportions, and just the appetizer (mashed potatoes, meatloaf, apple slice with topping, and pumpernickel with ham) would have been enough for me. I fear my stomach has contracted in my old age, and that I might no longer be capable of devouring one pizza single-handedly.
The next morning, Dad left and I explored the city for the rest of the day. Münster is fairly new, since most of the city was bombed into oblivion by the Allies during World War II. Thus it doesn’t have anywhere near the concentration of ancient edifices that a city like Salzburg has. Still, the churches are impressive specimens of their kinds (Gothic and late Romanesque), and some of the old buildings still remain.
First off, I visited the Friedensaal, the building in which the Peace of Westphalia was signed, ending the Wars of Religion and creating the Netherlands as a country. It wasn’t much more than a tolerably ancient room, although one of the suits of armor in the foyer possesses a pointed potbelly, the sight of which brought innumerable Monty Python-esque quotes to my mind.
Then I strolled down to the local palace, once the seat of Münster’s ruler and now part of the University of Münster. While the palace is not open to the public, the University’s botanical gardens behind the palace are, and I lost a couple of hours winding among the paths and experimenting with my camera’s “Flower” option.
After that, I returned to the city and walked around, taking pictures or just sitting and reading a book. I went to the shops of both the Picasso Museum and the State Museum of Art and Cultural History. As both Museums required an 11-Euro entry fee, I contented myself with browsing through photograph books and wishing I was awesome.
Later, after Vespers had concluded, I briefly toured the Paulus-Dom and the Lambertikirche. The Lambertikirche, it turns out, has a rather morbid past. During the Wars of Religion in Germany, a group of Anabaptists lead by one Jan van Leiden took over Münster, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God had come and setting up a utopian society. The local lords did not believe that any such kingdom had come, and they besieged Münster and captured it in short order. After executing van Leiden and his two chief supporters, the lords put the bodies in steel cages and suspended them from the spire of the Lambertikirche. The bodies have long since disintegrated, but the cages remain to this day.
By now, night was falling, so I headed back the hotel, collected my luggage and went to the train station. I went to a bookstore and discovered that books in Germany are a lot more expensive than their American counterparts (compare $7.99 to 11.90 Euros). Also, the bookstore didn’t accept my credit card, so most of my available cash went into the book purchases. I withdrew some more from an ATM and bought some pizza for dinner before settling down to a few hours’ wait in the train station.
I’ll leave off this blog post here, but my adventures in Nuremberg will be quickly forthcoming, and I’ll have that post up by the day after tomorrow latest.
Good night, and good luck,
-JA
First off: Münster. I took a long night train to Düsseldorf to meet Dad, with the intention that we would then travel to Münster. Unfortunately, the mighty Deutsche Bahn (the German railway system) failed me. My train was delayed for over two hours, and I almost missed Dad in the airport. But I ran into him just as he was about to leave for Münster, so all’s well that ends well. We arrived in Münster went to our hotel, the Tryp Kongresshotel. While it certainly wasn’t as nice as the Heffterhof in Salzburg, it was by no means incommodious. We napped, then toured the city before having dinner at a local restaurant.
The next day we rose bright and early to go to Metz’s birthday celebration in Ahaus, a tiny city north of Münster. (A note to my readers who aren’t part of my immediate family: Johann Baptist Metz is a venerable and famous German political theologian. Dad wrote his dissertation on Metz way the hell back in the late 80s/early 90s, and the two of them are fast friends. In fact, Dad has recently published a new translation of one of Metz’s works). The trip by car took us about an hour and a half on the way there, and we passed through terrain that would not have looked out of place in Ohio or Indiana: pancake-flat farmland with the occasional forest. The only difference were the wind turbines, which sprout out of the fields like great columnar trees.
The celebration itself (or, as the invitation put it, the “Theological Matinee”) took place in a Wasserschloss, a small Baroque palace surrounded by a moat-like pond. Apparently it was quite the vogue to build these things in northern Germany during the 18th century. This Wasserschloss is now owned by the city of Ahaus and is used as a kind of more stylish convention center.
The “Theological Matinee” opened with a series of speeches by friends of Metz. Naturally, these speeches were rather academic and were entirely in German, meaning that I understood them as much as I can write in Ogham. Each speech was separated from the next by a piece of piano music performed by a Prof. Dr. Tanski of the Mozarteum (the University of Salzburg’s formidable music school). The pieces were quite enjoyable, especially the last which poked fun at every Romantic composer from Beethoven to Strauss.
Afterwards there was an Imbiss, a German term for a quick meal, of stew, bread, pretzels, and dried meet, washed down with water, juice, or beer. Dad was able for the first to try a Radler, a German beverage made half of pilsner and half of lemonade. While by now means as alcoholic as a regular beer, a Radler is wonderfully refreshing on a hot day. I could spring for one now, because the Nuremberg train station is heated to Carroll-Hall levels (i.e., with many fiery furnaces).
After the Imbiss, it was back to Münster, where we had dinner with Metz and some of the guests of the matinee. The dinner, which was held in the Hotel Feldmann in the center of Münster, was also enjoyable, though the conversation was once again in German. My own skills served my a adequately, though I was forced to use English whenever I wanted to get a complicated point across. The food was served in suitably Germanic proportions, and just the appetizer (mashed potatoes, meatloaf, apple slice with topping, and pumpernickel with ham) would have been enough for me. I fear my stomach has contracted in my old age, and that I might no longer be capable of devouring one pizza single-handedly.
The next morning, Dad left and I explored the city for the rest of the day. Münster is fairly new, since most of the city was bombed into oblivion by the Allies during World War II. Thus it doesn’t have anywhere near the concentration of ancient edifices that a city like Salzburg has. Still, the churches are impressive specimens of their kinds (Gothic and late Romanesque), and some of the old buildings still remain.
First off, I visited the Friedensaal, the building in which the Peace of Westphalia was signed, ending the Wars of Religion and creating the Netherlands as a country. It wasn’t much more than a tolerably ancient room, although one of the suits of armor in the foyer possesses a pointed potbelly, the sight of which brought innumerable Monty Python-esque quotes to my mind.
Then I strolled down to the local palace, once the seat of Münster’s ruler and now part of the University of Münster. While the palace is not open to the public, the University’s botanical gardens behind the palace are, and I lost a couple of hours winding among the paths and experimenting with my camera’s “Flower” option.
After that, I returned to the city and walked around, taking pictures or just sitting and reading a book. I went to the shops of both the Picasso Museum and the State Museum of Art and Cultural History. As both Museums required an 11-Euro entry fee, I contented myself with browsing through photograph books and wishing I was awesome.
Later, after Vespers had concluded, I briefly toured the Paulus-Dom and the Lambertikirche. The Lambertikirche, it turns out, has a rather morbid past. During the Wars of Religion in Germany, a group of Anabaptists lead by one Jan van Leiden took over Münster, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God had come and setting up a utopian society. The local lords did not believe that any such kingdom had come, and they besieged Münster and captured it in short order. After executing van Leiden and his two chief supporters, the lords put the bodies in steel cages and suspended them from the spire of the Lambertikirche. The bodies have long since disintegrated, but the cages remain to this day.
By now, night was falling, so I headed back the hotel, collected my luggage and went to the train station. I went to a bookstore and discovered that books in Germany are a lot more expensive than their American counterparts (compare $7.99 to 11.90 Euros). Also, the bookstore didn’t accept my credit card, so most of my available cash went into the book purchases. I withdrew some more from an ATM and bought some pizza for dinner before settling down to a few hours’ wait in the train station.
I’ll leave off this blog post here, but my adventures in Nuremberg will be quickly forthcoming, and I’ll have that post up by the day after tomorrow latest.
Good night, and good luck,
-JA
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