Is Austin Powers my Neighbor ??

I see this Mini Cooper parked in front of our building almost every day now. Could it be that the international man of mystery has moved into our neighborhood?

Stained Glass

The stained glass in Cologne's cathedral reminds of of a deck of playing cards. All the people look like Queens, Kings, and Jacks. Here are a few of my favorites.

The City of Cologne

The previous post on the World Cup didn't say much about the city of Cologne (or Köln for you German speakers). Cologne straddles the Rhine river and boasts a lot of river walks, green spaces, and modern buildings. It doesn't have a lot of old buildings, though, as over 90% of the city was destroyed by bombing raids during the Second World War.

It feels a little bit like Evansville, Indiana, in a way. Cologne, too, is a river city with lots of barges going up and down the waters. Cologne, too, seems to have suffered through the loss of the old heavy industries during the 70s and is coming out of an economic funk.And, of course, Cologne has a Cathedral. Every respectable city has to have one. Cologne's is impressive and, in fact, is the largest in Germany. Though started back in the 1200s construction was stopped sometime in 1600s or so. It remained usable, but unfinished, for two hundred years. Then, in the late 1800s an explosion of German pride under the Kaisers spurred the completion of Cologne's cathedral. The cathedral was finished and it's spires, for a time, made it the tallest building in the world. The fact that those spires are still there is a minor miracle. The building took 14 bombs in the same raids that leveled the rest of the city.
Again, there is Strasbourg connection. When the spires of Cologne's cathedral passed the 142 meter mark in 1880 it displaced Strasbourg's cathedral from the position of the tallest in the world.

Köln, Cologne, and the World Cup

I don't understand the game of soccer. And there are a lot of things about the game that I don't like. (0 - 0 ties, for example.) But 90% of the worlds population is crazy for the game. And every four years, all the crazies get a chance root for their nation in the World Cup.

It so happens that the World Cup is being played this year and Germany is the host nation. Beginning June 9, thirty-two countries began playing at 9 different sites with a hope of getting to the final game in Berlin. This is the biggest sporting event in the world, they say, with over a billion people watching one or more games.

Cologne, Germany is one of the host sites. It is about 3 hours up the road, just past Frankfort. The only hard part about getting there is the fact that in German the name of the city is Köln. Don't look for roadsigns to Cologne, look for Köln. On Saturday, June 23, we went up there with Gabi Vega, her mother, and Jessica Moreno (visiting from Indy).

The first thing to understand is that about 10 times more fans have traveled to Germany than can actually fit into the stadiums. (Tickets are sold on a raffle basis. We tried to get some for Mexico and US matches and struck out completely.) To accomodate all these soccer nuts, the cities have set up "fan zones" with giant screen TVs where they display all the matches, regardless as to which city the match is played.

Cologne was absolutely packed with people and absolutely crazy. There were no games last week-end in the city, but everyone watched in the fan zones, or in bars, or on street corners. The streets were thick with people from every country in the tournament, usually draped in their flag. Germany played the 5 pm match and their fans dominated the crowd....singing, chanting "Deutchsland", and drinking lots of beer.

...and, by the way, there was lots of beer being drunk.

The crowds were remarkably polite despite the vast amounts of beer and sausages being consumed. The closest thing we saw to an "incident" was when the police had to help some poor German boy pull his pants back up after dropping them as part of his victory celebration. It was like a big fraternity party.

Following are a sampling of pictures to give you a feel for the world cup atmosphere in Köln last week-end.

Fête de la Musique

Wednesday, June 21, is the Fête de la Musique in all of France. This is not a concert or a series of performances. Rather, the Fête de la Musique works something like this:

1. The Minstry of Culture declares one day a year to encourage music performance and enjoyment.
2. On that day, anyone who makes any kind of music is supposed to go find a place on the street to perform.
3. Everyone else promenades through town to check out all the performers on the streets.
4. Enterprising capitalists sell beer and food to anyone who wants to buy.
5. Everyone has a good time

These are the rules all over France and it seems that the fête is celebrated well in almost every town and village. The fun is that some of the acts are good....but some are really horrible. It's like strolling through the Gong Show.

In Strasbourg, the city takes it seriously and this attracts more than just the amateurs. The opening picture (sorry about the quality) is a group we call the Peruvian Pan Flute Dudes. Over the past 8 years I have seen these guys set up on street corners in Madrid, Barcelona, London, and Florence. I'm beginning to think there is a little Andean industry going on that clones a copy of this group for every major city in Europe. But they are kind of interesting. You haven't lived until you've heard ABBA performed on the pan flute.

The city of Strasbourg sets up stages in the main plazas and offers a schedule of more "professional" performers to spice things up.

But of course, the highlight is walking around on a hot night with a cold beer while munching on a dönner kebab. If you've never had one, a dönner kebab (or sometimes kebap) is kind of like a greek gyro but its a bit bigger and made with meat that comes from places you don't care to know. These restaurants are EVERYWHERE in Strasbourg. But, just like the beer salesmen, traveling kebabers set up their portable spits to make quick money off of the crowd.For the record, it was quite a crowd. Even during the Christmas markets there were never this many people over so wide and area.

Storks

With the warm weather come the storks. I believe they are invited by the tourist bureau.

90% of the souvenirs of Alsace will have a stork on them. The bird is one of the symbols of Alsace and something in which the local folks take pride. At one point storks were nearly gone. Over the past 20 years there's been a concerted effort to re-establish the birds.

One of the measures called for fitting out chimneys with stork baskets, as shown above. I've been told that this is a tricky job because you often have to reinforce the chimney. Seems that stork nests can weigh upwards of 500 pounds where loaded with Mom, Dad, and Babies. (Baby storks....not baby humans awaiting delivery.)

Luzerne Again and Good-bye to Jane

Luzern is a place that we visited in January and swore that we'd return when summer came. Theresa and Jane took the train down there on Monday after our week-end in Luxembourg. (During the week-end, I get to drive to work so they take the train.)

From all reports, Luzern is even lovelier in the summertime. Without the winter haze, they could see Mount Pilatus and far into the Alps beyond. Also, they snagged a better photo of the lion than we did the first time.

They stayed over one night and returned on the train the next day. That left one more day for Jane to finally sightsee in Strasbourg. Then, on Thursday, she headed back toward Vienna to catch the plane back to Indianapolis.

Luxembourg

Luxembourg was one of the two countries I hated in geography quizes. Lichtenstein was the other. Never knew where to place them on the map of Europe. As luck would have it, Luxembourg is just a two and a half hours up the road. What better opportunity to put a rest to my geography anxiety.

On Sunday, June 18, a group of us went to Luxembourg. (Theresa, Jane, Gabi, Gabi's mom Irma, and Joe Grabczak. Joe was visiting from Indy on a business trip.).

Come to find out that:

1. The city of Luxembourg makes up nearly all of the country of Luxembourg.
2. Actually, Luxembourg is a Duchy...a Grand Duchy...as if Duchy's are ranked in size like Starbucks Coffee.
3. The flag of Luxembourg is the same as the French flag with the bars going the other direction.
4. The city arose as a fortress in the middle ages. It was know as the "Gibraltar of the North" because of it's appearance of invincibility.
5. Evidently, the invincible piece was only an appearance. The place was conquered frequently and changed hands like a hot potato.
6. Today it is an international banking capital, similar to Switzerland. More banks than Carter's has pills.
7. Which makes me wonder....How do you get to be an international banking capital anyway? Wouldn't every country want to get in on this racket??? What are the countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg willing to do for their customers that other countries will not?

Following are some pictures of Luxembourg for your enjoyment.

Jane and Theresa Go to Paris

Jane and Theresa went to Paris for 2 nights during the middle of the week of June 11. Jane had a rail pass so they both booked a round trip on the train. Since I had to work, I can't give much of a play-by-play. Seems that they had a good time.

In Paris, they did the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and all the other "must do" attractions. They also took the train to Versailles and spent the better part of the day there. (Portrait below was taken at Versailles.)Finally, a pensive gargoyle on Notre Dame Cathedral.

An Evil Place

The image above is meant for you to read. If possible, double-click on the image to enlarge to allow for easier reading. If you are not able to read it, then you will probably be able to figure it out.

On Sunday, June 11, we again went for a drive into the Vosges mountains. This time, we went near the town of Natzweiler, which located at a high elevation, in a quiet place, far away from prying eyes. 100 years ago, there was a ski lodge here named Struthof that was popular among the flat-landers from the plains below. Today there is a memorial. At issue is what happened some 65 years ago.
In 1941 the Nazis opened the Natzweiler - Struthof Work Camp here. It was the most westernly concentration camp run by the Nazis. (You could say it was the only one on French soil, but the Nazis considered Alsace to be part Germany, not France.) By all standards, this was not the largest or the most murderous of camps. But evil is evil - regardless as to whether the scale is large or small. Not that the murder of over 20,000 people should ever be considered small scale.

Natzweiler - Struthof started as a work camp. It was a place to which Jews and homosexuals and political resisters were deported and forced to work at quarrying sandstone from the hills. Later, with links to the Strasbourg Medical University, it became a pilot plant for the mass murder that would occur in the extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka. Poison gases were tested. Gruesome medical experiments were performed. Strasbourg University was commisioned to create an anatomical collection of the Jewish peoples. It was understood that such a record was needed for historical reference, since all Jewish peoples would soon be exterminated.
On this particular Sunday in June, the view from this location was spectacular. It was beautiful. It was noisy with singing birds. This is how I want to remember it.

I started out taking lots of pictures like any tourist. After a while, I turned off the camera. It was not respectful to photograph these things.

I don't want to forget the solitary confinement cells, or the gallows, or the oven, or the ash pit, or the autopsy table. But I don't want to remember them too easily either.

Here's to our children and our grandchildren. I hope such evil is gone from their world and never to return.

A Quiet Place

It stays light in the evening until about 10 pm. After spending the afternoon at Turckheim, we still had about 4 hours of daylight left...so we decided to just go driving. It's a good game. Follow the roadsigns and go to someplace you've never been.

Now, the roadsigns in France have a special symbol to mark historical destinations. About 15 minutes headed in no particular direction, we saw a sign that pointing toward someplace named "le Linge" with this historical designation.

So we followed the sign. The road took us winding up into the Vosges mountains toward the Valley of Munster. After about 20 more minutes of driving, we found "le Linge" and came to find out that it was a World War I battlefield. It is a quiet place. In deep woods on a mountain side. God only knows why this should have been a battlefield.

It really spoils a jolly mood when you find out your mystery destination is a preserved system of trenches on the top of a forsaken hill. Even worse when you find there are German and French cemetaries nearby, each with around 10,000 graves or so. These were the folks who walked these same trenches when they were hacked out of the rocks over 90 years ago.
Though over 90 years have passed, there are two things that prevent you from taking emotional shelter by treating this as ancient history. The first is that if you stray too far off of the approved trail, you run the risk of being blown up by unexploded shells that were fired in anger when my grandfathers were still children. The second is the crosses. As seasons pass, the rain and snow will occasionally expose human remains. The crosses mark the discovery of soldiers - white crosses for French and black crosses for Germans.- that seem to still happen to this day.

For the Alsatians, you can pick any color cross you want. In a cruel joke by history, they were on fighting on both sides. Officially they were part of the German empire. Historically, many young men had fled Alsace into France (and elsewhere) to avoid conscription...only to find themselves returning home in a French uniform when the war broke out.

Jane Comes to Visit

The same day that Amanda left, our friend Jane McMurrer arrived in Strasbourg. Jane teaches at Center Grove High School and was passing through on a trip to Salzburg by the school symphony orchestra. (Note: Salzburg is not to be confused with Strasbourg. Salzburg is in Austria and is the birthplace of Mozart. This year they are celebrating his 250th birthday.) Jane planned to stay with us for 10 days or so.

On the week-end of Jane's arrival, we took a drive down along the wine route to visit the village of Turckheim. Among other things, Turckheim has an outlet for Staub cookware. Staub makes top-of-the-line cookware, mostly enamel on cast iron. The prices are significantly marked down, but are still too pricey for my wallet. On the other hand, they have a line of ceramic cookware that they sell for 2 euro per kilo. This makes for cost-effective cooking.

Anyways, Turckhiem is one of the lovely little Alsatian villages with half-timbered houses and flower boxes. The opening picture is of Jane with the waiter who provides us with lunch. She wanted a picture with local scenery. And there you have it.

Following picture proves that winter is over and the flowers are back in bloom.Turkheim also has a museum dedicated to World War II and the liberation of Alsace in 1944 - 5. It's a small museum but it gives a flavor of the destruction that occurred in the villages. Moreover, it gave a warm remembrance of the USA's involvement, which was appreciated by an American like me living away from home in this day and age.It says "The village of Turckhiem in remembrance of the 50th anniversery of it's liberation. Feb 4, 1945 - Feb 4, 1995. The population in recongnition of the French soldiers of the 1st Shock Batallion and the American soldiers of the 112th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division."

Good-bye Amanda

On June 9, it was time for Amanda to go back home to Bloomington. It was wonderful to have her for a month and now we will miss her greatly (as we do Jake and all the family.

Haut Konigsberg - Again

The castle at Haut Konigsberg is another staple of sight-seeing trips. Amanda had not been up there, so we stopped for our first visit since spring had come.

As a side note, Haut Konigsberg was mentioned in a previous post where I went on a bit of a tangent about the history of Alsace. This castle was occupied and built over the course of many centuries until it finally was bombarded and burned into ruins during the Thirty Years War. It remained in ruins for over 200 years. Then, in the late 1800's, Kaiser Wilhelm II was going through a phase of romanticizing his German heritage and listening to a little too much Wagner. He decided he needed a castle befitting a warrior knight. So, he brought in an architect to rebuild the old castle at Haut Konigsberg so that it might become his romantic little hideaway. At the time, Alsace was 20 or so years into it's annexation by Germany and the castle served as a powerful symbol of Alsace as part of the traditional German homeland.

Unwittingly, the Kaiser made an excellent investment in the future. Today, the castle is probably the number one tourist attraction in all of Alsace.

The castle has a nice assortment of old furniture and the armoires are especially attractive. The picture below gives a taste of the lovely woodworking.

Mont St. Odile - Again

I figure that if we stay in Strasbourg long enough, then sooner or later we'll have a picture of everone we know taken at the spot shown above. The convent at Mount Saint Odile is about a half hour drive from home and it offers a nice view of countryside surrounding Strasbourg. We have mentioned it before in regards to previous trips. Amanda visited during her December trip and wanted to go back to see the view during warmer times.

By the way....when describing our visit to Venice, we mentioned the marvelous mosaics decorating basilica San Marco. Well, at Saint Odile there are two small chapels (the Chapel of Tears and the Chapel of the Angels). These walls and ceiling of these chapels are decorated in the same style of mosaic. The picture below, from the Chapel of Tears, gives you an example.

Over the Top of the Alps

The route from Strasbourg to Venice leads though Switzerland. Getting into Switzerland is no problem (other than the 40 Swiss Francs that you have to pay for a highway pass.) Getting out is a bit more tricky. Mountains get in the way.

On the way down to Venice, we opted for the easy route and took the 10 mile Saint Gothard tunnel. This takes you from the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland to the Italian-speaking ones. The only problem with the tunnel is that it is a bottle neck. It is only two lanes and they've installed controls to limit the traffic flow. (The controls after there was a crash and fire in 2001)

On the way back, we elected skip the tunnel traffic and, instead, to take the Saint Gothard Pass over the top. This was a very good call as the scenery was spectacular. Looking across the mountains, you could see different types of weather....from sunny to cloudy to rainy.Even thought it was the middle of May, there was still snow in many places near the road.

For what it's worth, the week after we returned they had rockslides that closed down the tunnel under Saint Gothard. The week after that, they actually had snow again in the Saint Gothard pass that closed it down temorarily too.