29 July 2007
Vacation within a Vacation
24 July 2007
Two Tales from One Saturday
The now tenantless stadium appears to be searching for more sources of revenue after the soccer team FC Bayern-Muenchen departed for a new venue. One of the ideas the management apparently came up with was leading non-acrophobic visitors along the maintenance paths and steps on the tent-like roof. Once I heard about it I asked if others had any interest. Dylan was the only one to come through and to commit to doing it with me.
The tour began by going beneath the stadium to a room remodeled for this tour. Here we watched an introductory video about the history of the stadium and its construction, and put on our harnesses. The object pictured below is what actually keeps one to tethered to the stadium roof. The wheel moves along a cable secured to the walkways. It also passes over the connection joints between the cable and the walkway so that the user must not remove and reattach it every ten feet or so.
For the most part we remained on the outer edge of the roof. We soon arrived at an excellent vantage point for the soccer field below.
After close to two hours we descended and stepped back onto terra firma. Here are a couple more shots from the top. In the first one you can see part of the Munich historical city center in the background.
While the day’s activity was an exciting and good time, the return home is a different story. Indeed, I go as far as to say that last Saturday night was my worst experience since arriving in Germany.
The train ride home started normal enough. We left Munich at 8:26 PM, and were due to arrive in Eichstaett at 10:17. A few minutes before entering Ingolstadt and maybe only 45 minutes from Eichstaett the train came to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Short stops in between stations are not so uncommon. Sometimes the train must wait for another train to clear the track, or for any other understandable inconvenience. Therefore Dylan and I didn’t become anxious about our situation until around half an hour passed. When our watches marked the passage of another half hour the train conductor made an announcement. Without an apology or explanation of any type he simply stated that we would have to travel to the last station we passed through, Rohrbach.
However we continued to sit still and became well acquainted with our surroundings on the train. The car behind ours carried a preteen soccer boys team and their parents returning from a game or tournament in Munich. Much to my and Dylan’s joy the young boys’ high level of energy kept them playing with the doors in between the cars, running through the corridor, and shouting. Our drinks run out and our patience followed closely behind. Eventually Dylan looked at his watch and asked if I remembered an hour ago when he told me we had been stuck there for an hour. I nodded my head in understanding. We had now missed the last connecting train to Eichstaett until the morning.
Soon after, the train conductor made another announcement and asked if any fluent English-speaking person on the train could report to the last car. Dylan and I, bored out of our minds, looked at each other and quickly rose to our feet. Our hopes of being heros or at least having something to keep us occupied were dashed when we reached the last set of doors on the train. A German accented voice came out the nearest speaker and relayed the first message in English to the non-German passengers. We grudgingly returned to our seats.
A second announcement was made a little later that seemed to deliver some hope. The conductor said a new engine was traveling toward us and would arrive in approximately 20 minutes. It would then take us back to Rohrbach where there would “probably” be another train waiting for us. On top of that, the German Red Cross would be on hand to help out and provide free drinks. That last bit of information made Dylan, me, and our dry mouths especially happy. Keep in mind we only ate light snacks before leaving Munich because we planned to eat once we arrived in Eichstaett.
We started moving again at around 1 AM (the fifth hour of a two hour train ride) and quickly pulled into Rohrbach. We left the train in a hurry only to be greeted by around 20 uniformed Red Cross paramedics asking us to remain abroad. As one might expect, few passengers complied and began taking there stress out on the workers. Dylan and I only concentrated on finding the free drinks. After walking around the train station (a simple feat to accomplish with the train station of a one horse town like Rohrbach) we discovered that none were on hand. It turned out that the Red Cross workers didn’t even have a clue about the promised free drinks. Dylan and I looked for an employee with the train company and realized there wasn’t anyone there with Deutsche Bahn. They must have been hiding or they ran away, because the only people at the station were the Red Cross workers and a train load of angry and stressed passengers.
Dylan and I tried talking with a few Red Cross workers about how we would continue on with our journey and none of them could give us an answer. Although I can understand that somewhat seeing as how they didn’t actually work with the train company.
Around two o’clock an empty bus charted by Deutsche Bahn pulls up in the parking lot and people make a mad dash for it. There was no announcement as to where it was going, but passengers knew it had to be going somewhere. Dylan and I found out it was going to Ingolstadt, had luck, and claimed some of the last available seats.
We arrived in Ingolstadt close to three. Outside the station the first train employee of the night was available to talk to about what was going on. However the pattern of the night continued and this man was as disorganized and unhelpful as everyone else. He could only tell us that another bus would eventually come and take passengers farther.
This statement and his lack of real answers upset a lot of people. When being shouted from the mouths of an angry mob German is quite possibly the scariest language to hear. Heck, it’s pretty scary to hear coming from one angry person, let alone a whole group. Dylan and I wanted to argue and complain along with the crowd but the pace quickly sped up above our skill level.
When it died down I asked the train employee who should talk to about receiving a refund for our tickets. He told me that Deutsche Bahn would not offer any refunds because the company was not at fault for this incident. That ushered in round two of the German shouting match.
The trains would resume normal daily operations at 5:30 and we began to seriously believe that we would be waiting until then for our return to Eichstaett.
In the mean time most of the other passengers had been shuttled over from Rohrbach and were also waiting in Ingolstadt now. A little before four o’clock a bus arrived for people needing to go to Nuremberg. A little later a second one arrived for those needing to go to smaller towns in between that city and Ingolstadt. That included me and Dylan.
We finally arrived in Eichstaett at about five in the morning.
We have issued a complaint to Deutsche Bahn and are waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully they will be smart enough to at least refund our tickets.
Saturday was a good day, but I could have done with out Saturday night.
18 July 2007
Birthday in Deutschland
The day began with AK International taking around 30 students, mostly foreigners but also some Germans, out for a canoe trip on the Altmühl. This mostly lazy river winds through Eichstätt and eventually empties into the Danube down by Ingolstadt. However the occasional man-made damn or flood control measures provided a few challenges. As you can see in the pictures below, we spent a little bit of the time in the water. In my canoe were Dylan and Paulina, who is from France. Paulina is seen in the last of the three photos below.
In the evening there was a farewell grill party for the foreign students. That was the official reason anyway. Unofficially it was also my birthday party.
In this photo from left to right is Albert (Russia), Alexi (France), Dylan, and Paulina.
Here we have Hannah and Emily, both from America.
This is me after receiving a surprise birthday cake. Apparently this was the second cake that was bought. The first was eatten by an American girl who wasn't aware of its intention and thought it was another food item brought for the party.
In the foreground of this photo is Kerstin on the left, one of the leaders of AK International, and Jiashu (China) on the right. I really don't know the two people in the background too well.
Mariko (Japan) and Faye (China) smile wide in the picture.
And here Annabel (Germany) stares down Matt (America).
After the party a few of us continued celebrating in the Theke, which gave us a free bottle of a German champagne-like drink because it was my birthday. So all in all it was a good day to have my birthday.
14 July 2007
Berlin: The Ever Evolving City
Through the history of Germany Berlin was almost always present as the metropolis of the nation. The city was
As the Allie occupation zones came into effect those under the watchful eyes of the
In a decade the distance between East and West grew and eventually the East German state, still under the influence of
Most non-Germans I’ve talked to about the Wall tend to fail to grasp how large and devastating it was for
Change began in 1989 when the Wall opened, and a year later on October 3
As the picture at the opening of this posts attests,
Every visitor acts as a witness to the ever changing, ever progressing city of
With that said, one can probably imagine that
Dylan and I left last Thursday evening in a small and cramped car destined for
We awoke early the next day and started by searching for our new hostel. Availability in the city’s hostels was tight, and this was the only solution we could find. After moving across town we began exploring.
One of the first sights we came across was Alexanderplatz. Before the war this was supposedly the busiest public square in all of
From Alexanderplatz we strolled to the Neu Synagoge, or the New Synagogue. Originally built toward the end of the 1800s, this house of God was burnt by the National Socialists (Nazis) during the Kristallnacht raid on
From there we crossed the
Dozens of street vendors throughout the city sell memorabilia from the Communist era. Most of it's fake, but I suppose one might be able to find some authentic pieces.
We soon entered what one can consider the center of
At one point we crossed an intersection only to look down the other street and spot the American embassy. Actually we only realized it was the embassy after our curiosity drew us to the fortified building. A terrorist warning is currently in place for all Americans in
Eventually we stood before the Brandenburg Gate, arguably
Almost as close as a building can get to the Gate, the construction for the new American embassy continues. My guess is that this new structure will provide new security measurements which will avoid the problems caused by those impromptu ones taken at the current site. Either way, the new structure looks like it will be more aesthetically appealing.
A short walk north of the Brandenburg Gate is the Reichstag. This building houses the German parliament, and one could say it’s the equivalent of
It originally opened in 1894 and the parliament used it up until early 1933. It is now commonly believed that the National Socialists, who had been steadily rising to power in the parliament, set the Reichstag ablaze in a covert operation. After the fire Hitler blamed the burning on Communists and used this as justification for further limiting the civil rights and liberties granted by the constitution of the
With the decision to move the capital back to
After the Reichstag we walked to Potsdamer Platz and came across some of the city’s old scars. The first photo below shows the site where the Gestapo headquarters once stood. In the second picture one sees a section of the Wall still standing.
The last sight for the day was the recently completed Holocaust Memorial. We learned that this is actually a privately constructed and maintained site and is not connected with the German or
The next day we went to the Berlin Zoo to check up on a four-legged celebrity. Before we found him we came across these sun bears which entertained us for some time. The one on the left is trying to hide from the rain, while the cub is about to insist on playing.
Soon after, we found the object of our search, Knut. Perhaps you have heard of this famous polar bear cub. He gained international press coverage when his mother rejected him after birth and was adopted by
After the zoo we briefly stopped by at the Gedächtniskirche, an anti-war memorial. The church received heavy damage during a
Next we toured the Jewish Museum, which presents the story of German Jews from the last 2,000 years. It also included a holocaust memorial, which Dylan and I found better. Still rather simplistic in design, this memorial was contained in a large and dark open room. On the floor of this room lie hundreds of steel faces upon one another, each about the size of a frisbee. As one carefully walks over the faces the metal clanks echo through the room. I believe that the best memorials create the intended effect and reverence without a cue to do so. Here, for instance, all people fell and remained silent in the room although no sign requested such respect.
The museum was really the last main sight we visited in