Cathedrals and Beethoven

Cathedrals and Beethoven

by | Nov 24, 2023 | Blog

We had an adventure! Sorry I didn’t post as usual, but we were having an adventure!

We learned that four of Nathan’s former business partners would be driving through western Germany between business meetings. We had been considering a trip to Cologne (Köln in German) and the area, so we decided to take the plunge and arranged to meet them for lunch. The plan was to take the train on Thursday, meet the guys on Friday, then have 3 more days to explore and experience. As we settled in to relax on Tuesday night, we got a notification that there was a rail strike planned, starting Wednesday night and lasting until late on Thursday. So, the choice was between missing our meeting with the Card Access crew or traveling on Wednesday. We decided to go for it. We quickly booked an Air BnB for one night, packed our bags, and planned for an early train west the next morning.

The ride was rather uneventful, except for that, despite being a high-speed train, it was slow due to multiple delays. The German rail system is no longer the solid, punctual system that it used to have a reputation for. We are learning that train travel is generally chaos. Our journeys to cities around Cologne and then when we returned to Leipzig were littered with delays, cancellations, and trying to reconfigure our travel plans. We still like it, though!

We got into the Köln main station and the main attraction of the city, the massive and amazing cathedral is right outside the station doors. It dwarfs pretty much everything else in the city. You can’t miss it!

When I was in high school and took AP Art History from Cheryl Hughes, I was fascinated by medieval architecture, especially Gothic cathedrals. By that time in my life, I had traveled to Wyoming (because family was there), Idaho (because sometimes we drove through Idaho to get to Wyoming), and Denver (because it was a fluke and we did a day trip to Denver on some dinky airline for $25 one time). I thought how amazing it would be to see Cologne Cathedral, but traveling to Europe was far beyond my imagination. I just couldn’t see how a kid like me would ever make that happen. Little did I know that I would meet a crazy, mathy guy with a Swiss family and an itch to travel while I was studying Art History at the University of Utah just a couple years later. Life. It’s always interesting.

The cathedral is absolutely so beautiful and breathtaking. It is one of the tallest in Europe. It took over 600 years to finish! We visited over several days of the trip because we were staying nearby. We stepped inside during our initial walking tour of the city. Then we took a guided tour (in English ☺) from a local monk. That got us into some of the areas that aren’t accessible to the public, like the sanctuary where the shrine holding the bones of the Three Magi is housed. (Side note, as a non-Catholic, I have never quite grasped the idea of holy relics, so these things are a bit wasted on me. But it was still pretty cool.) But the best things about that part of the cathedral are the mosaics on the floor and ceilings. Awesome! Then we also took a guided tour (in German ☹) of the archeological excavation under the cathedral to see the remains of the different buildings that stood on the site previously: a Roman temple and another cathedral from the Carolingian era (age of Charlemagne, more on him later). Even though we struggled to get everything the guide was saying, he did speak slowly and clearly and we got the general idea. Also, we got to go to another cool area of the building that not everyone gets to see. Worth it!

We met the four guys from Card Access at a Turkish restaurant for brunch. We traveled about 25 minutes east of the city on the train and they met us there. It was great to see familiar faces and to catch up on all the family members. It was also nice to have a bit of home come to visit us.

You know that we had to check off another composer, so we popped down to Bonn for an afternoon to visit the house where Beethoven was born. On a previous trip, we also visited the house in Vienna where he died, so now we know it all, hahaha! It was a really good museum. Unlike some of the other composer sites we have visited, they have Beethoven’s instruments, notebooks, and other belongings. I think it makes a big difference if the composer was a superstar during their life or not. If they were, people held onto their stuff!

We took another day trip to Aachen (or Aix la Chapelle), the city where Charlemagne set up his kingdom and kicked off the Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century. There is a really good museum there and we took another tour (in German ☹) of the cathedral. Again, even though it was hard to understand the guide, it was worth it to see some of the areas of the church that aren’t open to the public. The cathedral is mind-boggling. There are gorgeous mosaics and stained glass everywhere. The building is uniquely shaped like an octagon and was built, rebuilt, and restored over centuries. Every European ruler of the Middle Ages who wanted to legitimize their right to the throne would be crowned there, sitting on Charlemagne’s throne. That even lasted until Napoleon. We don’t visit every church we encounter (we wouldn’t have time in two or three lifetimes), but the cathedrals in Aachen and Cologne were worth it!

It was a really good trip. We also spent a drizzly, cold day walking around Düsseldorf, we went to see a movie (in English ☺), we visited an Irish pub to hear some live music, and we ate some really good meals. One very memorable meal was dinner on our last night. We walked a couple blocks to a neighborhood with so many Turkish restaurants to have a döner kebab. Just as we sat down to eat, we received the news that our fifth grandchild is due in June! Dinner with a side of baby announcement!

Now we are back in chilly Leipzig, staying cozy in our little apartment as wintery weather is setting in. We get out for a walk every day, but we definitely have to bundle up now. We went to a nice restaurant for our Thanksgiving meal last night and reflected on how good life really is. We’re so grateful for all of our friends and family and for life. We are gearing up for another journey tomorrow!

A Quiet Week

A Quiet Week

by | Nov 12, 2023 | Blog

It’s been a low-key week here in Leipzig. We returned home from Bavaria and had some catching-up to do. You know: laundry, groceries, homework, etc. So there’s not a lot to report. But we are planning a trip for this coming week to Cologne, then we will celebrate Thanksgiving, then we are scooting off to Berlin, so there are exciting things coming!

For this week’s post, I thought I would share a few things that are different and cool about Germany and a few things that are different and questionable.

Different and Cool

Public transportaion here is awesome. One really different thing is that the Subway stations are completely open–no turnstiles. You do need a ticket to ride, but there is nowhere to scan it or punch it or anything like that. You just walk into the station and onto a train–easy! You do have to prove that you have paid your fare if an employee is checking and the fine is steep if you don’t have a valid ticket.

They are so environmentally-concious here. Almost all products are packaged in recyclable packaging, there are lots of places to recycle glass bottles, and everybody composts here. They are sensitive to conserving energy and water. I like it.

Mineral water is a thing here unlike you can even imagine. Where our grocery stores have a whole aisle for soda, the Germans have a whole aisle (sometimes two) for different mineral waters. Super sparkling, sparkling, flat.

Different kinds of yummy food in the supermarkets here: feldsalat, many delicious cheeses, great bread, great chocolate.

Different and ?

Here in Leipzig, parking on the street is kind of funny. In the U.S. we wouldn’t be able to park everywhere, like within so many feet of an intersection. Not so here. There are cars parked along every inch of the curb at night. It’s kind of a hoot.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll put it in again. Smoking is more prevalant here. There are way more people who smoke and it is totally acceptable to smoke on the terrace at a restaurant or on a busy train platform.

Imagine a Super Target. Now break that up into three different stores. That’s what you get here in Germany. If you want groceries, you go to the supermarkt, but you can’t buy much else but food and a few household goods there. If you want something like costmetics or lotion, like a Walgreen’s or a CVS, you go to a drogerie. But the drogerie doesn’t have the pharmacy part; you have to go to an apoteke for that stuff. And even “over-the-counter” medications that we would just choose off of the shelf, like cold meds, are behind the counter and the pharmacist has to get it for you.

Bedding is weird. The bed pillows are huge, square, and squishy. They have a fitted sheet on the bed, but no flat sheet, just a duvet on a down comforter.

Customer service is a lot friendlier in the U.S. Be nice to the people that are serving you, because they are awesome!

We miss nut butter, bar-b-q sauce, rootbeer, and easy access to great Mexican food. 🙂 Many of the desserts here are not that good.

The leaves here are finally really falling and the temperatures have dropped a bit. Skies are generally gray and cloudy, but we haven’t had any really cold nights yet. The one thing this week that I will mention is that November 9 is a significant date in Germany. You would think there would be huge parties because it is the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. However, it is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht as well as some other more difficult events, so things are more low-key. That’s why they celebrated the falling of the Berlin Wall and reunification in October. In remembrance of Kristallnacht, Nathan took some photos of flowers and tributes at some of the stumbling stones in the neighborhood. The brass had also been polished up.

A Journey to Österreich and Bayern

A Journey to Österreich and Bayern

by | Nov 5, 2023 | Blog

In other words, Austria and Bavaria. But it sounds slightly more exotic auf Deutsch, no? We are again in a race with the winter weather, so we decided to take a few days and go to Salzburg, Munich, and Nuremburg. For a lot of people, when you say Germany, this is the part of the planet that they think of.

Our first day was a long train day with several transfers from train to train. We are getting better at navigating the train system, but we are still learning. One thing we have learned is that the trains are inevitably delayed and tight connections are almost impossible. As a result, an already long day was made longer. Nonetheless, we made it to Salzburg and all was well. It’s Mozart’s home town, so there was a little concert that we were hoping to hear. We dashed to check into our hotel, drop our bags, and hoofed it into the old town and just managed to snag two seats in a small room in the museum near the cathedral. We heard three sonatas for piano (actually harpsichord in this case) and violin. It was great! We grabbed dinner and strolled back through the old town and enjoyed some nice fluffy pillows and a good night’s sleep. The next morning, we did a walking tour of the town. The baroque architecture and cozy streets and squares are really pretty. One of the lovliest places is the cemetery at the base of the cliff that inspired the dramatic scene at the end of “The Sound of Music” when Rolf literally blows the whistle on the Von Trapps (it was shot on a sound stage in Hollywood). We also visited Mozart’s birthplace, the cozy (cramped?) house where his family lived for many years. We enjoyed Salzburg. I can imagine that the town is absolutely overrun during the summer, but in the off season, it was quite pleasant.

I had a school assignment that required an internet connection, so we scooted off to Munich around lunchtime. By the time we reached the city and I was able to finish my work, the weather had set in. Decked out in our rain jackets and with umbrellas in hand, we did our walking tour of most of the old part of the city. It was mostly destroyed during World War II, but the people of Munich decided to rebuild as close as they could to the pre-war state rather than build new (like Frankfurt). The Frauenkirche was really pretty. It’s so tall and instead of the crazy baroque and roccoco decor in some of the other churches, it has a simple white and gold interior that really emphasizes the verticality of the space. After chasing Martin Luther sites in German cities further north, it was interesting to see what a city that stayed connected to Catholicism looks like. After slogging around in the dark and the rain for a while, we decided to find dinner and then we headed back to our hotel.

The next morning, since it was cold and still raining, we finished the walking tour, then we caught the subway north to the Olympiczentrum (site of the 1972 games) and the BMW Museum. We don’t always choose to visit museums, but they are a great activity on a wet day. The museum felt a bit like a long advertisement, but it did have some interesting exhibits, especially the more future-focused cars and the quirky vehicles from the past. We warmed up back at the hotel for a bit, then we actually ate German food for dinner. Then we did something that we haven’t done for months and something we love to do when the weather stinks: go see a movie. In Germany, they dub most foreign-made films into German, so to find the original version can be tough. We found a little old theater showing the English version of “A Haunting in Venice”. The theater felt like the old Tower theater in Salt Lake and was pretty full with a lively crowd munching on kettle corn and reacting to the movie. It was a fun evening. 

The next morning was much dryer, if not warmer, weather. We decided to take advantage of it and, since we didn’t get enough of the mountains while we were in Salzburg, we headed south to the Bavarian Alps. Oberamergau has a famous Passion Play during the summer, but in the fall it is quiet and beautiful. There is a tram to the highest peak there. In the Alps, there’s almost always a tram or a railway or some sort of transportation to the unlikeliest of peaks. We hiked up to the top and then rode the tram down. It felt like it was probably the last opportunity for that activity for the season, since it was slightly snowy and pretty slippery in places toward the top. The weather was moving in again as we reached the summit, but the views and tram ride down the mountain were totally worth it. We hopped back on the train for a scenic ride back to Munich, slurped ramen for dinner, and fell into bed after a long and satisfying day.

The last day, we hopped on a train toward home, but we made a stopover in Nuremburg for a few hours. Described by some as “the most German of German cities”, Nuremburg is pretty great. Of course, Hitler thought so too, so there are a lot of Nazi connections there. But the medieval old town was rebuilt as much as possible and the place is just charming. We walked around, sampled the famous Nürnburger wursts (they are little and usually come in threes), and bought lebkuchen (Nürnburg gingerbread cookies). The town was starting to get dressed up for the upcoming Christmas market season, so it was looking especially attractive and delightful. But we had to get on the train for home just after lunch. We watched “All the Light We Cannot See” on our ride back to Leipzig. It was a bit of a whirlwind week, but really worth it!

 

A Bite to Eat

A Bite to Eat

by | Oct 29, 2023 | Blog

So here is the post some of you have been waiting for…food! A small preamble:

1. We are NOT vegetarians. Apologies to those of you who are. Maybe skip this one?

2. We, ironically, have not eaten a lot of German food while we have been here. All I can say abou that is this: life’s too short to eat what you don’t love. We have tried some stuff that sounds good, but frankly schnitzel and potatoes and cabbage aren’t that appealing to us at the moment.

3. We have been eating out a bit more than we normally do at home. We have a kitchen but it is modestly outfitted and there is little storage. We also don’t want to stock up on tons of ingredients, since our plans are fluid and we aren’t exactly sure when we are going to move on.

4. Food in restaurants is generally served here beautifully. We rarely have a meal that is not nice to look at before we dive in.

Here are a few of the meals that have been stand outs since we arrived in Germany two months ago:

Tapas

We fell in love with tapas when we were in Spain for a couple months. We grabbed this tapas meal before a concert. It was so yummy, but the aioli had us tasting garlic for the whole night!

Sushi

Last week we took a little day trip to a nearby town called Machern. On our way back, we stopped at a little Vietnamese restaurant and had various things. Here is the yummy sushi and sashimi.

Solyanka

This is a Russian soup that is popular here in eastern Germany. It’s reminiscent of chili, but with no beans and a different spice profile. Tasty.

Salumeria

Another Mediterranean “bits and pieces” meal at a local salumeria–a lot like tapas, but Italian. With a little basket of bread and a salad, a plate like this is surprisingly filling and oh so good.

Raclette

Ok, Swiss family! We found a raclette restaurant in Krakow. There was just one guy running the place, but this was so delicious. For the uninitiated, raclette cheese comes in a giant wheel. They put the sliced surface under a broiler and then scrape off the melted portion onto a slice of bread. And it comes with good pickles, which was refreshing. Don’t get me started on the abomination that is German pickles.

Empanadas

This was our appetizer for an amazing steak dinner we had in Krakow.

Breakfast (Frühstuck)

Yogurt with müsli and beautiful fresh fruit is a super popular item on cafe menus. I don’t have a photo, but another yummy breakfast is a Käse Frühstuck: bread and all kinds of yummy cheeses.

Leipzig Pizza

A snack for the train

When we are catching an early train, we will often stop at a bakery for a bite for the journey. This was a tasty ham and cheese pretzel (brezel).

Goulash (gulyás)

Another dish we fell in love with in 2019. We found this goulash at an Irish pub.

Falafel Bowl

There is a sizable Turkish population here in Germany because of waves of migration over different decades and centuries. Döner Kebab places are everywhere here–kind of like fast food places in the U.S. We love these places for a salad or a veggie-packed bowl or sandwich. Always so good. Falafel is yum.

BBQ

This was a crazy meal that we shared in Erfurt. Pretty authentic and surprisingly good barbeque, with a European flair of course.

Brat & Brotchen

Classic street food and the most German thing that we have eaten. Not only is it great for grabbing on the go, but it’s an easy thing for us to have at home too.

Dessert

We only order dessert if it’s really going to be amazing. This was worth it! Flourless chocolate cake with gelato and fresh fruit. (Yes, I ate all the fruit.) The round yellow fruit with the wild leaves is a kind of gooseberry that they use a lot as a dessert garnish.

currywurst

I mentioned this one in another post. Classic street food. It’s a sausage, warmed and sliced, topped with a spicy ketchup.

Eggs Benedict

We love some tasty eggs. Sauces here are often filled with fresh herbs.

A Journey to Poland

A Journey to Poland

by | Oct 22, 2023 | Blog

One place we knew we wanted to visit while we are living here in Germany is Poland. We sat down a little over a week ago to plan a little trip to Kraków and then we looked at the weather. It looked good for the next day and the weekend and then COLD and SNOWY after that. After a chilly November trip to Canada a couple of years ago, we learned that you can be a tourist when it’s cold, but it’s more fun when it’s not. So, we decided on Friday afternoon to buy train tickets and leave first thing Saturday morning. Kraków is a beautiful city that has hundreds of years of history and culture. We got there in the evening and wandered around town a bit to get the lay of the place. It has a huge central square lined with shops and restaurants. The buildings have a lot of character and flavor. There are gorgeous churches all over and the Polish people are still quite religious compared to other parts of Europe, so the churches are well maintained. One of our favorite things about the city is the Planty. When they took down the fortifying wall around the city, they filled in the moat and planted trees and it’s now a park that goes around the entire city center. We did a self-guided walking tour, stopping at the most interesting spots. The only remaining city gate, St. Mary’s Cathedral, and the Jewish Quarter were all interesting. We had to bundle up and fortify ourselves with warm drinks since it was definitely feeling wintery and we also munched our way around town, trying some Polish classics as well as some other delicious meals. We had a truly excellent dinner one night—maybe the best we’ve eaten since we arrived in Europe. We marked off another square on our Composer Bingo card and went to an all-Chopin concert. Although Chopin was from Warsaw and spent all his adult life abroad, the Polish people are very fond of his music. The pianist that performed was phenomenal. We visited the castle and cathedral of Wawel. It’s a gorgeous complex on top of the hill looking over the city and the Polish people count this place as their heart and soul. We also checked out the museum that is housed in Oskar Schindler’s enamelware factory. It has a really good exhibit about how the citizens of Kraków were affected by World War II. The population of Kraków was about 25% Jewish before the war and there was good cooperation between the different peoples. After the German invasion and occupation, the Jewish Quarter and the Ghetto were pretty much erased and subsequently neglected. When Steven Spielberg was making “Schindler’s List”, he decided to film in the city where the story takes place and it revitalized interest and investment in the history of the area. The museum shares details of the resistance and how Kraków miraculously escaped being leveled like Warsaw as the Red Army liberated Poland. We visited Auschwitz-Birchenau on a tour, even though we had initially thought we would skip it. We visited Buchenwald just a week before, so we weren’t sure that we were ready for the emotional weight of another concentration camp. Our guide was a woman from the town Oświęcim, which the Nazis Germanified to Auschwitz. She repeatedly reminded us that the original camp was for forced labor and political prisoners. The bulk of the systematic slaughter of people actually took place at Birkenau. The museum and memorial are so well-done and it is truly chilling. Concentration sites outside of Germany are preserved by the victims of the cruelty and carnage, so there is more emphasis that these people were murdered, especially the women and children. It was a long and difficult day, but nothing compared to the true suffering that happened to those people and continues to happen in the world to this day. We also visited the 13th-century Wieliczka Salt Mine. It has been functioning for centuries and also welcoming tourists for several hundred years. It was so awesome to see the mine shafts and tunnels. The mine has nine levels and we saw bits of three of those. There are wide open chambers where the miners spent decades clearing out big chunks of rock salt. Some have water at the bottom. Some have carvings of mythical characters, religious figures, or famous people that visited the mine. A couple are huge and there is one that is a big chapel with salt statues and chandeliers made of salt crystals. The guided tour was excellent and we really enjoyed our time there. Kraków was a great place to spend a few days and we are so glad we took the opportunity to visit. We will definitely return to Poland in the future if we have the chance.
Wir sind Leipziger

Wir sind Leipziger

by | Oct 16, 2023 | Blog

Hello, from Krakow, Poland! This week’s post will be a quick one, because we are having trouble finding time to write about adventures while we are having adventures! 😀

Two significant things (and one less than fun thing) happened to us on Monday.

First, we became official Leipzigers! We have the complimentary coupons and keychains to prove it now. Oh yeah, and the official documents that we have been waiting for, too. Through Nathan’s diligent efforts to gain an appointment at the registration office, we were able to register at our new address and we are now official. Fun fact, this whole registration thing in various countries in Europe is a holdover from the Roman Empire. Now, Nathan has moved his focus to the next goal, residence permits so maybe we can stay longer than our allotted 90 days.

The second thing was less fun. Since we had been gone on our last trip for a few days, our cupboards were bare. So, we stopped after getting registered to get some groceries and have some lunch. However, while we were waiting for our sandwiches to (slowly) be made, the heavens opened and there was a pretty good rainstorm that we then had to walk home in. We were soaked, the groceries were soaked. It was soggy.

The third thing was that Monday was October 9, the day that Leipzigers celebrate the beginning of the end of Communist rule in East Germany. It was on the 9th of October 1989 when tens of thousands of Leipzigers took to the streets in peaceful protest and demanded more freedom of movement. They were threatened with violence from the police but started with what had become the weekly prayer meeting in the Nikolaikirche followed by a completely peaceful march. The police didn’t really know how to react, so they allowed the march. Germans across the country saw a glimmer of hope that their efforts were working and would maybe progress would be made. Protests continued and a month later, the Berlin Wall came down.

The celebration consisted of different art installations in some of the city’s plazas and people carrying lit candles and placing them in the plazas to show the collective power of hope and action. It’s called Lichtfest Leipzig and it was fun to be out amongst the people of our new home on a meaningful night.

I will save the report of our impromptu trip to Poland until next week. Tchüss!

P.S. If you would like to help with my service project, you can go to the Utah Food Bank website here, make a cash donation, and then send me a text or email and I’ll include your donation in the team totals!