Germany
First Impressions
All my life I wanted to go to Europe. I wanted to see where my ancestors came from. In the past few years, a lot of the family managed to get there, but not me. This year I was really pushing my wife Cheryl to go, but all I got was planning for a camper trip to Niagara Falls. Been there, done that. I was seriously considering just going on my own when Cheryl surprised me for my birthday with a 10-day trip to Bavaria. Now, I don’t want to bore you with details of the plane ride – it was horrible – or all the places we saw, but I did pick up quite a few bits of German errata worth noting.
So here they are…..First Impressions
Red Tiles. The Germans were the last invaders of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, when they got to Rome they found all the gold and silver and other good stuff had been looted by the Vandals or Visigoths or whatever. The only colorful things left were red roofing tiles. Being very practical, and wanting some color, the Germans carted them all back to Bavaria and re-roofed. They haven’t run out yet, so every roof is a picturesque red tile roof. As you drive through the countryside every little village is pristine, nothing unsightly at all, white houses, and red tile roofs. After a while it grew weary and I started looking for a ratty trailer house or rusted out cars in the side yard…..but…..nothing. Just red tile roofs.
Rest Stops, Signs, Exits. The autobahns were reasonably impressive highways. Very smooth pavement, but no medians, which makes one a little nervous since the left lanes are reserved for people driving 150 mph. I couldn’t do that because my rental car was a Fiat Punto. The highway engineers are great believers in trees and concealment. The exits were all hidden with trees planted right up to the edge of the pavement, even hanging over the pavement. Scary when you are doing 100 in a Punto. Exit signage is obscure and also hidden in the trees. Making snap decisions while you are laboriously translating German to English is nearly impossible and usually wrong.
Passing on the right is Verboten. We nearly created massive wrecks by passing on the right. It is NOT allowed, EVER. The German drivers simply loose their minds if someone passes them on the right. They make German hand gestures at you. Fortunately, I can’t translate them. And FYI, don’t pass on the left when all the Germans have cued up on the right scrupulously obeying the occasional posted speed limit. They have traffic cameras in those spots and will mail you a speeding ticket. Hertz must have to throw a lot of those away. Finally, at all costs, do not stop at a German rest stop to use the public facilities. I have never seen such nasty rest rooms in all my life. It is better to slip off into the little forests helpfully planted around the rest stops along with every other male having to go. The Frau’s just have to suffer. When you do have to let the little woman go, stop at a gas station. Their facilities are privately owned and very nice. Just remember to slip the door guard fifty cents or he will follow you around yelling in German to pay up. It doesn’t matter if you pretend you don’t understand, he’ll just get louder, following the time proven practice of shouting if the listener doesn’t understand your language.
A side note to my German friends: Driving on American Interstate Highways is NOT like driving on the Autobahn. There are speed limits, usually 70 mph (130 kph), which are universally ignored. Drive 80 to be safe. Watch it over 80. The police run radar everywhere. Everyone drives in whatever lane they want. It is up to you to get around the slow ones, but do NOT flash your lights, honk or make obscene hand gestures. Most Americans are armed and many will not hesitate to shoot at you. Do not cut in too close to a car you just got by – same result.
Language Barriers. I am told that Germans look with some disdain on Americans and frequently pretend they don’t understand us. We never encountered this problem. If they acted like they didn’t understand me, I simple spoke German to them until the victim gave up and spoke English. By talking to many total strangers, I actually found two or three people who really didn’t speak English. What a treat. I got to practice my German, which is nicht sehr gute, aber, sehr spass.
People. A cute little shop Fraulein told me she could always tell the Americans because we were so friendly. I could always tell the Germans because they were so stiff, until late at night when personal beer consumption reached several gallons and they loosened up. It got to be kind of a challenge. How do you make the waitress bend at the waist or smile? Here’s how. Try speaking German with them. Really garble it up and speak softly so they have to lean over to hear. Always ask for ice, even before you order a drink, it confuses them. They never put ice in drinks. Some of them don’t know what ice is. They think you mean ice cream. See if they have alcohol free beer, that really confuses them. Ask if there is anything on the Speisekarte that doesn’t involve schwein mit sauerkraut. Don’t talk about all the destruction visited on them during the war. They get very depressed about it and blame themselves. Overall, I have to say, I loved the Germans. They reminded me of, well, myself.
Television. I watch the German N-TV all news channel on the internet at home, but watching regular stations in Germany was pretty weird. A lot of it is like watching Lawrence Welk auf Deutsch. The strangest thing was watching Hogan’s Heros dubbed with German. I did not see any R-rated TV, although my friend Bruce Paulin, a fluent German speaker, warned me to watch out. In the end, we didn’t watch much TV since the German is way too fast for me and unintelligible to Cheryl anyway.
Water Towers. I realized after a few days that I never saw any water towers – it’s an engineer thing. I started keeping a lookout. Lots of castle ruins on the hilltops, no water towers. Then I noticed there weren’t any power lines either. None. Very aesthetic, but strange. Maybe the water towers are hidden in the schloss ruins. Maybe there just isn’t any rural electric. I asked a German friend about this, unfortunately a teenager, who just gave me a puzzled look, like, water just comes out of the tap, and, lights come on when you flip the switch…right? After I got home I asked Bruce Paulin about it. He said they just consider those things unsightly and hide them. Like trash. There isn’t any.
Navigating in the City. It was stressful jumping into our rental car at Munich International Airport and pulling straight onto the autobahn, particularly after flying for a day and jumping forward 7 hours. I had carefully planned my route through Munich from the north to the south side where our hotel was located. Unfortunately, I managed to leave my Google Earth maps somewhere, I never did find them, and was forced to navigate by memory. The first exit I was to make was onto another autobahn. It was supposed to be a large, standard, cloverleaf. Never saw it. Didn’t realize that autobahns, unlike interstates, aren’t signed as such, and all interchanges are hidden in cultivated little forests. Why do they do that? Do they consider intersections unsightly, like water towers? I remember driving madly through a little forest and seeing an obscure ‘A9’ sign. That was it. Well, after another 20 miles, or some 32 kilometers – something else to be constantly calculating – it was clear we were somewhere on the west side of Munich. I knew we had to be in the City, but I just couldn’t see it anywhere. I mean, there were largish streets and lots of houses and buildings, but nothing taller than the trees. I saw an exit for a street that seemed to have a familiar name and got off, turned to the east, and started looking for a gas station. (Thank the Lord that north is still north in Germany, particularly since it was cloudy and rainy the entire trip, or I would really have been in trouble.) The Fraulein at the station got flustered with English, und meine Deutsch, after all, ist nicht sehr gute. We hunted up a junge who could speak English very well, but, unfortunately, as it is with youth everywhere, he did not have a clue where he was or where anything else was, either. But, he found a stadtplan. (City map) I perused the map for a while with him. Got some directions to the east and south that depended on hitting a major land feature, the railroad tracks, and took off. I was sure that by going toward the central city I would soon see it and then could navigate around it to where the hotel was. Wrong on both counts. Never saw the tracks, and never saw the central city. Later, I figured it out. There are no buildings in Munich taller than five stories. You can’t see the central city unless you are right into the middle of it, and even then you can’t be sure. And, the tracks were there, they just jump underground occasionally. The next day we rode on a train into the central city that didn’t exist on those very tracks. But, when I needed them, they were hiding.
Well, I was actually lost and, eventually, I randomly turned south. For the record, this was the only time in my life that I have been lost. We wandered on various roads in a southerly direction until we were clearly no longer in Munich, which we had never found in the first place. The Lord took pity and came to my aid. He pointed out a tiny little road sign that had 11 on it. I remembered that 11 was the road I planned to leave Munich on when we went to Oberau. Excited, I told Cheryl this road must take us right back to Harras Circle near the hotel, and I was sure I would recognize Harras Circle because I had studied it closely on the Google aerial trying to figure out how to negotiate it. (It is really a weird teardrop, not a circle. More on circles later.) We turned around and headed back into Munich. In 10 miles, again without ever noticing where Munich started, we abruptly ran smack onto the Harras Circle. I couldn’t negotiate it initially, even as I feared.
I was afraid to try an illegal left turn at the teardrop, and went on north to try to go around the block and head back to the Harras. Couldn’t do it – go around the block that is. After a while I made an illegal U-turn in desperation, and soon we were driving right by our hotel. No where to stop or pull in for check-in. We tried to go around the block again. Still couldn’t be done, in fact, this was even worse. We wandered through little alleys until Cheryl was sure we were hopelessly lost, but, Magua knows the way, usually, so I reversed track and went back to the hotel. No place to park on the wrong side of the street, either, so back around the Harras Circle. This time at the teardrop I noticed another car making an illegal left turn and decided it must be legal after all, so I did it too, amidst blasting horns and more untranslatable German hand gestures. Back to the hotel. This time I parked illegally on the sidewalk, close to the front, and we checked in.
German Hotels. I could write a book on German hotels, but I won’t. Things to note: All the rooms had separate single beds with separate little comforters pushed together to make one bed. Unfortunately, Cheryl and I sleep kind of curled up together in the middle of the bed, which made falling into the crack a distinct hazard. Every hotel had a similar arrangement. The last one, the very expensive Intercontinental in Frankfurt didn’t even push the beds together. Cheryl put her foot down at that and demanded we have a regular double bed, and got one.
Hotels aren’t air conditioned in Germany. Not that it was particularly hot, except in Füssen, but you have to leave windows open which makes it noisy. The very expensive hotel in Frankfurt was air-conditioned – so cold we had to have them bring up a space heater.
Hotel rooms are incredibly small. The room in Munich was about the size of the stateroom on the Norwegian Dream cruise ship. Which is to say, no room to put a suitcase down. The door lock systems are strange and hard to use. The toilets are all water saver pressure flush and are equipped with a toilet brush so you can clean out embarrassing residue that the water saver can’t flush. The hot water systems are, shall we say, surprising. You could not anticipate whether you would get scalded or frozen and it didn’t matter how you adjusted the flow.
The hotel staff was invariably friendly and helpful, particularly if I tried to speak German with them. I should note that on our last day I did get my accent reduced to the point that I fooled a tourism lady in Baden-Baden. I asked for a city map, in German. After I asked, she raised an eyebrow, hesitated for a long moment, and asked “English?” It was definitely a highpoint of the trip.
Navigating in the Country. Getting around in the country wasn’t too bad so long as you packed food and water. Every road was initially a cow path, or the European equivalent. Anticipating direction was difficult. Anticipating, and thus making, correct turns was even more difficult. One highway, clearly indicated as a significant two lane on our map, gradually turned to dilapidated lane and a half with no center line marked. We climbed over a mountain pass and, after a while, I noticed signs referring to Osterreich and realized with some shock we had strayed into Austria. I stopped at a roadside Inn to ask a local couple if we were still on the road to Füssen. The Herr was dressed in classic Austrian lederhosen attire and spoke a dialect that was recognizable as a dialect even to my limited ear. I sort of understood him, but I had a hard time with ‘turn right’ – drrrehen zzie sich naccchhhh rrrecccchhttts. Never mind, we got to Füssen OK.
Cutting across from Rothenburg to Bamberg on the secondary roads led me to a discovery. Now I know where the terrible traffic circle virus (a compulsion to design traffic circles at random intersections in the country) that is infecting American engineers came from. Every rural intersection was a traffic circle. There must be some sort of vaccine to impart immunity to this serious disease. I also discovered that all the schwein eaten in Germany are raised somewhere else, along with the cattle and chickens – oops, sorry, they don’t eat chicken. Never saw a single pig. Did see some weird goats, however. And, apparently, the only plants cultivated in Germany are hops and grapes.
Cemeteries. Now, this was a really weird discovery. When I studied the Munich area around our hotel on Google, in order to recognize landmarks like the Harras circle, I saw what must be a cemetery across the road next to the disappearing railroad tracks. A really huge cemetery. When we were coming back from sightseeing on our second day, having ridden the train to downtown, we walked right by the cemetery. You couldn’t really tell what it was from the street but I knew what it had to be, so we went in. It was unbelievable. Carefully laid out grid of walkways lined with orderly and beautiful graves. Each grave had a little rectangular curb covered in flowers, and each had a lit candle. Each had an elaborate tall tombstone with family names carved on it. It was like a ghoulish fairyland. We wandered around marveling at the graves and taking photos until a woman came in and started yelling at us in German. I quickly sorted that out telling her I didn’t understand yelling in German, yelling back Ich verstehen sie nicht! so, she smoothly switched to English, as they all did. Once she found out we were strangers and interested in the cemetery, she was in her element. She was the caretaker.
We toured about in the cemetery with our guide as she explained how it worked. It took awhile since it was really foreign to us. You know that, in the United States, a grave is inviolate. The only way you can move a grave marker, or a body, or even remaining dirt, is to have written permission from all extant descendants of the deceased. The older the grave, the harder that is. I know this because of personal experience. Sometimes it is better to just not notice that you are grading over a grave. In Germany, you rent your grave. When you die, you pay for a ten year rental if you are interred in a wooden coffin, or a seven year rental if you are cremated. Graves are used multiple times, with burial on top of burial. So long as the body can rot away, this can go on almost indefinitely. So, no embalming and no metal coffins like here. If your descendants don’t pay the rent, your grave is rented to someone else, and your tombstone is removed. If necessary, the very organic soil is removed. I didn’t find out what they do with the old tombstones, which, as I mentioned, are very elaborate. The very organic soil probably goes to one of those rent-a-garden spots that we saw all over town. What was that movie? Solient Green? The meticulous care of the grave-sites is done by, primarily, florists, for a service charge paid in advance when you rent your site. So all the sites are beautiful.
This practice is found all over, so, when we stopped at a tiny church in Oberau, we got to admire yet another beautiful little cemetery. If you are really important, you get to be buried in the churches, in the floors or walls, with elaborately carved tomb covers. These covers frequently feature ghoulish skull and crossbones depictions. In Baden, where my ancestor August was married, one cover was supported on short pillars with the skeleton neatly laid out beneath for general viewing. We found out later that the skeleton was really a copper representation of the real thing, which had eventually decomposed, being 1000 years old or so. This was right up behind the choir seats, where everyone could admire it. I guess you don’t rent your site inside the church.
More on Navigating in the City.
When I was busy doing my pre-trip google aerial exploring, I frequently noticed that the google map would not give me a street name, or that the street names seemed to jump around a lot. I finally figured what was with that when we were trying to find our friend Anna-Lena’s apartment in Bamberg. I had managed to keep the google directions to Anna-Lena’s (but no map) even though I misplaced everything else. Confident, since we actually had directions, and since Cheryl was by then paying meticulous attention to where we were at all times, we drove completely around Bamberg so that we could exit the autobahn at the right place and drive straight to Anna-Lena’s. We made the exit all right, but then things immediately went to hell.
We drove aimlessly around Bamberg for a while, trying to get close to the river and old town, because Anna-Lena lived close to the river and old town. Using my usually unfailing since of direction, and psychotelegenetic power, I eventually found old town and the river. Driving south looking for Nurmberger Strasse, I took a random right turn toward the river. Cheryl screamed, ‘That building has Nurmberger Strasse on the side!’ So, we must be on it. In a couple of blocks we crossed the river and decided we weren’t really on it, and did a U-turn. We went back, and indeed, there was Nurmberger Strasse right on the side of the building, on the street we were on. We stopped at the next light. The old gothic style street sign did not say Nurmberger Strasse, either way. I turned right and pulled over at a liquor store to inquire. For a change, no-one spoke English, and I got to ask where the address was in German. The Frau told me to gehen sud, geradaus, to the Kreuz, and continue straight. Then we would be on Nurmberger Strasse. I didn’t ask what street we were on now, even though it was the same street we would be on in three blocks, it was apparently not Nurmberger Strasse. In three blocks we were in front of Anna-Lena’s building, and the street had indeed changed to Nurmberger Strasse. We noticed that the numbers on the buildings did not follow any particular sequence, either, but, now we knew: The street names change at random from block to block. We confirmed this with Anna-Lena. I never did find out why this was so. Perhaps streets were named for an important person who lived on that block. I would hate to be a postman in Germany.
Miraculously, when we left Anna-Lena’s, we drove straight to the autobahn, same exit, making only one turn. Next time we go to Germany, I will be sure to have a detailed map of every city we have to negotiate. Street names are useless, house numbers are useless, and directions only work if you are practically on top of your destination.
One more little warning about driving in the city. Traffic lights are always located on your side of the intersection, never in the middle or far side as here. If you are the first car, don’t pull too far forward or you can’t see the light, and won’t be prepared to floor it when it changes, and you better floor it when it changes or you are holding up German progress and they don’t like it. Also, the lights change red-yellow-green instead of red-green. By giving a yellow before green, the drivers have chance to get their rpm’s up, the better to get off the line. Just like American drag strips. And you better be paying attention when are taking a light on yellow because it will abruptly turn red, not giving you a chance to clear the intersection and making you fair game for the cross street drivers as they come off the line.
Diet Coke and Other Food Warnings. There is no diet coke in Germany, period. Don’t ask. If you are addicted, as we are, this is a trial you just have to endure. Try for coke light, which they have, but only in the tiny bottles. If you are really sweet to the waitress, and really lucky, you may be able to get a glass full of ice with a coke light on the side, which is just bearable. Personally, I took to drinking carbonated bottled water which is very popular in Germany. Don’t ask for tap water. They only use that for washing dishes.
Most menu items involve large quantities of heavy pork in many variations. The variations are primarily the type of potatoes, dumplings or kraut you get with it. Vegetables are scanty and over cooked. Breakfast consists of lots of different kinds of pork sausages and cheeses. Now, all the schwein is tasty, but I ate more meat in a week than I do in six months at home. Sauerkraut at every meal is also tasty, but makes your pee stink so bad it is embarrassing. We thought maybe we were picking up some dreadful infection or something.
Grocery stores are tiny by our standards, and seem to be located on the lower floor of department stores. People take their dogs into the stores and tether them by the door, inside. The stores have large wine and beer sections, but no ready mix cakes or brownies. No meat is prepackaged. You wait in a very orderly line for your turn to have the butcher or butcher-ette cut off your order, in kilograms. Same with cheese. In Baden at Wagoners, Cheryl scooped up their whole stock – over 100 bars – of Milka chocolate bars because she wanted to take some home. The people at the checkout were highly amused. Cheryl, even though she speaks no German, had no trouble when it came to shopping and paying for things.
Old Places. Europe is very, very old. I didn’t really have a feeling for how old until we got to Rothenburg. (Pronounced Ro-ten-burg) I know this particular errata means nothing to my German friends, but it will to the American reader. We got into Rothenburg rather late in the evening, having made one of those snap decisions on the way up from Füssen which aimed us toward Stuttgart instead. Anyway, it was getting into dusk and raining when we got there. No map, of course, but I knew our hotel was against the west wall of the old walled city. We drove straight to the east gate, but I chickened out after looking in. The roads looked too small for cars, and I didn’t see any inside anyway. I turned south, driving along the wall looking for clues and found one, a sign/map with a you-are-here arrow and a bunch of tourists gathered around looking at it. The tourists were the clue. I got out and struck up a conversation. They were trying to figure out where their car was, they had left it inside the wall somewhere and were very upset. I said, ‘You mean you can drive in there?’ Sure, they said, the streets are just narrow.
I drove a little further and turned through the south gate straight into the magic kingdom. Cobblestone streets, no lights, no signs, no people, rain shining on the pavement – it looked like the hunchback might jump out any moment. I drove on the 12-foot wide street to the center of town and started looking for the hotel, the ‘Burg’. I got to a point I knew had to be close, but, did I mention there were no signs, and no lights. I stopped, psychically casting out, and attracted a modern looking woman to the car. She wanted to know what we were looking for. I told her, and she said, ‘Oh, it is very close, follow me.’ and took off jogging down the street. She stopped where a sidewalk turned off between the buildings. Turn down here, she said, go to the bottom of the hill to the wall, you can see the wall, turn right, go along the wall a block and you are there. The sidewalk was apparently a street. The building fronts cleared the sides of the Fiat by, say, two inches on each side. The lady kindly helped me get aligned to go down the hill without scraping the extremely old buildings. Down we went, straight into the city wall looming overhead, turned right, and there it was. The hotel’s sign was about 10 x 20, and it was just a door in the wall, but it was there.
The desk clerk was waiting up for us. I won’t go into the details of the Burg, but it was, without doubt, the most charming hotel I have ever stayed in. We quickly unloaded our suitcases, checked out the room, and went down to inquire about a place to eat. It was now nine and we figured we could have a problem, remembering that the town was completely dark and deserted. The desk clerk, and older man, spoke English with such a heavy British accent that I later accused him of not being German at all, said the restaurants all quit serving at 9:00, but he would make a phone call. I guess he called his buddies around the block who stayed up to serve the help getting off at 9. They would fix us dinner. All we needed to do was walk up the hill to the Dom (cathedral), turn left on Klingengasse, go under the Dom and down the hill a block. The restaurant would be on the left. Look sharp or you will miss it. There were, of course, no street signs whatsoever.
Off we went, in the light rain, in the dark. Did I mention they don’t have street lighting? It was spooky. What if there were footpads hiding in the doorways? Walking under the Dom was really walking under the Dom, through an arched tunnel. Did I mention the hunchback? The street was vaguely glistening cobblestones, really old cobblestones, like hundreds of years old cobblestones. We found the restaurant. I truly regret not remembering the name, and I have tried to find it. The restaurant was very dim through the single window, but the door was standing open. Inside, it was lit by only candlelight. Like, there weren’t any electric lights. The inhabitants were a middle-aged couple at the end of a common table, two sheets to the wind, and smoking like chimneys. At the other end of the common table were a couple of older men, two sheets to the wind and smoking like chimneys. A middle-aged women popped out and seated us at the middle of the common table, asking us if we minded the smoke. We lied.
The menu was in German, imagine that. We worked through it and ordered. The waitress was somewhat shocked when we ordered diet coke with ice – they didn’t have either – instead of warm beer or wine like everyone else. Never mind. The food came and was good. Our eyes got really dilated so we could see in the dim light. The smoke continued, and the other people gradually got three sheets to the wind. After we ate, I took pictures of these happily smiling Germans. They were really happy by then. So, it was getting time to go. On impulse, I asked the waitress, who had turned out to be the owner of the place with her husband, seated at the end of the table, how old this restaurant was. ‘Oh, 600 years,’ she said. It immediately took the record of the oldest building I had ever set foot in, much less eaten in, although that record was broken the next day. 600 years old. My house is 109 years old and is considered an antique. My country, for crying out loud, is only 231 years old or so. 600 years as a restaurant. It was a shock that has changed the way I look at things.
Well, kind of a long way around to get to how old Europe really is.
New Places. Our last night on this first trip to Germany was spent in the ultra-modern International Hotel in Frankfurt am Main. I mentioned this hotel earlier. Since Frankfurt was bombed beyond the rubble stage in WW2, most everything is new. The International is like hotels anywhere in the world, except that the Germans did not know how to operate the air conditioning system…and they still had that bed problem. Our first room had the single beds, but these weren’t even pushed together. Cheryl had enough of that and we demanded another room with a double bed. We actually got one, up on the 20th floor, but it still had those single bed comforters. Since this was clearly a room for cranky Americans, the air was turned way down, to say 50 or so. We called the staff, again. They couldn’t fix it. The German engineering was too much for them, and we had to stay in this room. Finally, they agreed it was intolerably cold, and brought up a little electric space heater for us. We had two nights in this refrigerator.
I am going have to quit writing on this; it’s gotten far too lengthy. Suffice to say I loved the trip and I love those quirky Germans. I can hardly wait to go back. Maybe I’ll ship my Saleen over so that I can burn the Mercedes on the Autobahn. Maybe I can learn to really speak the language, both verbal and sign language. Maybe I could buy the falling down 1000 year old house in Rothenburg, or one of those castles on a hilltop.
What a trip!
slicesdotlive 