Day 19 – Go Nowhere Day

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

So, I didn’t exactly go nowhere as I dove deep into my imagination to finish yesterday’s blog entry, and then there were those essentials like eating that required me to leave the apartment. But don’t let me fool you if I sidetrack this blog post and fill it with lies that somehow I had a grand adventure all the same. Though, let’s be honest, writing as much as I did today and editing what I wrote yesterday was exactly what I might expect from a grand adventure, so excuse my contradictions.

This is the first-ever photo of Klaus and me together. Klaus is my brother-in-law, and he’s also a solid guy who’s been absolutely key in helping Jutta make her ten trips to the United States from 1996 to 2013. Since 2013, when my mother-in-law broke her hip, he and my sister-in-law Stephanie have hosted us in their home on every visit we’ve made. As a matter of fact, Klaus is the second reason I’m in Germany at the beginning of summer, and Jutta is the first reason. You see, Klaus has shouldered a lot of responsibility in caring for family, managing the main family assets, and helping Katharina as she moves through university. Klaus had to deal with his own mother’s belongings after she passed back in 2013, and now he’s been dealing with many of the details regarding Jutta’s effects, and I felt if I could be of any help, I’d make it happen to be here.

Klaus and I have never really taken the time to get to know one another, but this trip has given us a small window to learn a little more about where each other is coming from. Today, he and I not only took care of more of Jutta’s history that she can no longer keep with her, but we went shopping and just talked about stuff.

The first stop on our morning adventure was over at the Bornheim-Mitte open-air market, Saturday version. Before we could shop for a thing, Klaus needed breakfast, so we hit a small cafe that had just one table open; it was now ours. Sitting down for a bite to eat and some coffee seems simple but after more than 25 years of being brothers-in-law, this was only the second time we’ve done this. The first time was just a couple of weeks ago. We were at this market to pick up fruit and some veggies while other things required a proper grocery.

REWE grocery store was where he went next. On my first visit just a few days prior I was astonished that such a beautiful large building could be built right here in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I wondered what could have been torn out or was there a grocery store here before? Klaus clarified things by letting me know that this had at one time been a depot for some of the trams that make their way over the streets of Frankfurt. Ah, now I can see the railyard influence I was oblivious to a minute before.

Yeah, I told you about Dick Milk in a previous post as being key to Grüne Sosse; well, here it is so you know I’m not joking about such a serious subject. Just how many men have to be milked to collect such amounts boggles the imagination.

I tripped, and I don’t mean yesterday’s visits to those churches. I’m talking about all of the eggs in this store sitting on the shelf. What’s so peculiar about that, you ask? The shelf is NOT a refrigerated shelf; these eggs could just be on your countertop. Klaus pointed out that they will be fine there until the 19th, a week away, then they need to be refrigerated and are good until the 25th. I told him how, in America, if eggs were left out for more than 30 minutes, most of us would probably throw them away. Relating this to Caroline, she informed her occasionally doltish husband that it’s because our eggs are washed because Americans are squeamish about blemishes that might be on the egg in the form of chicken poop or blood. Because Germans don’t wash their eggs, they have a protective coating that they are laid with that keeps them fresh. I swear that, at times, I feel like an idiot.

There’s really nothing special about this display of cheeses sure, they are all for grilling, as grilled cheeses are popular in Germany and, I’m sure, elsewhere, but it’s a small reminder to me that food should rotate in and out of our lives instead of relying on staples we eat for a lifetime.

Keeping with the theme of variations of products we grow accustomed to, look at these bratwursts. At first blush, you may not realize it, but these are not your ordinary grilling brats. A couple of them are just kinda weird, but I’ve not tried them, so who knows? On the far left are Grüne Sosse brats, and towards the right are Handkasewursts; the wild ones are wild boar, the ones from Wetterau take influence from a region north of Frankfurt, while the package with a sheep on it that says Lamm is lamb.

This image is a torturous reminder of what might have been our favorite stoner food when Caroline and I lived in Frankfurt: veggie fingers. Like fish sticks, except with veggies and no longer with cheese, because their veganness demands no animal products are used to make these, I’m sure that after a couple of bong rips, these Gemüsestäbchen would still be ace!

These are posted only to make Caroline pine about one of her favorite food items ever: rhubarb. When we moved to America and discovered Prairie Home Companion, Caroline found her anthem in Bebob-a-Rebop Rhubarb Pie, and finally, the protest songs lost their place in her heart.

The early 80s called Caroline and wanted their protest songs back after I divulged her loyalty to rhubarb instead of the scene, and here they are being handed off to the official state agency that handles those things no longer relevant, thus also removing a cultural threat to the future. Goodbye Bots.

Klaus and I visited a couple of used record shops to see if anyone wanted Jutta’s record collection. The first shop only collected guitar music with the requirement that “Your parents had to hate it.” This nice enough guy suggested we try around the corner because that shop specializes in classical and jazz. We explained the situation and were invited to take his dolly so we could load up the two large boxes of records and bring them back easier. Seriously, who does that in America? Anyway, he took all the records after checking out the titles to be sure there wasn’t a million-dollar record among them. Again, this kind of honesty is amazing to me.

At this very moment, I started writing about today, Day 19, here on the 12th of June, 2021. It is now just after 8:00 p.m. and I’m once again hungry and must take myself out of here to find what will only get more difficult to acquire as the night goes on. But be it delusion or euphoria, I feel in the flow of goofing around in front of the screen and keyboard that are recording me. That, though, has to be contended with as I do not operate on joy alone.

When I finally went out for dinner, Bergerstrasse was packed, and impossible to find a table, so I gave up. The Italian joint where I ate a lunch of Carbonara the other day wasn’t very interesting either, that left Blauen Bock at the corners of Neebstrasse and Saalburgstrasse. I had avoided this on a previous visit to Germany as I walked into their dining room, and the place was so thick with cigarette smoke I would never believe they could serve a good meal, but for a drink, it was probably a place worth visiting. I don’t drink. Anyway, here I am, and food is starting to arrive, beginning with Handkäse mit Musik because, of course just that, and after this appetizer, Grüne Sosse with extra Dick milk.

Day 18 – Travel Day

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

See this happy face? It’s a mask of naivety. About to leave for the day, I’ve got my laptop slung over my shoulder, my camera is obviously in my left hand, the ablutions are finished, and I’m excited to be on a rail trip that will take me on a new adventure to places I’ve never been. I’ll take lots of photos and, hopefully, an adequate amount of notes to minimize what I’ll be dealing with later this day and tomorrow morning. Well, here I am a day later (no, not in the photo; that really was me getting ready to leave on Friday morning), and I’m confronted with 63 photos and over 2,700 words pasted in between the images and there are still 43 photos that don’t have a word below them. What this suggests is that while I’ll likely pare some images, I probably will have about 4,300 to roughly 6,000 more words to add. Do you really have time for some seven to nine thousand words, even just scrolling past them?

I’m WARNING  you now: skip this blog post unless you are interested in more self-indulgent blathering from an undisciplined, narcissistic cultural sycophant.

Late Edit: While I didn’t cut a single image from this post, it is at a much more palatable word count of just under 6,000 of them pesky things. 

Speaking barely enough German to get by is one thing, but when it comes to reading German, I’m at a serious disadvantage as I can’t gesticulate wildly and talk louder to a machine. So, did I buy the right pass for my train journey that said it was good for five people? No idea, but when the ticket control officer comes around, I might learn the details of what this is, and hopefully not a hard lesson.

If I have the correct ticket, and even if I don’t, I’m going to Wetzlar, and from there, I’ll decide if I’m going west to Limburg or east to Fulda. What I am certain of is that in Giessen, I need to change trains to the RE99 in the direction of the Siegen Hauptbahnhof. I was about to look up what sights can be seen in Siegen, but this train doesn’t have wifi, yet. So I checked on my phone and thought Siegen might hold promise, but then I thought about what state it might be in; my “Hessen” ticket certainly doesn’t cover North Rhine-Westphalia, so check Siegen off the list.

Well, my ticket is correct and incorrect as it isn’t valid until 9:00 a.m., but after that, I’m good. I was advised to hang out in Giessen until 9:00 and then jump on my train to Wetzlar as the next control officer might not be so friendly and could fine me 60 Euros for the mistake. I have to wonder why the RMV app would offer me an invalid option when I was trying to buy a ticket for a 7:19 a.m. departure and why doesn’t the app have an English option anyway. Looking at the town of Giessen via Google, I might just go ahead and risk the fine. We just passed through Friedberg, where Elvis Presley was stationed during the Cold War from 1958 to 1960.

Well, the Giessen main train station looks nice enough, as well as an early 20th-century factory might look.

Crossing the bridge from the train station to the city was this sticker reminding me that there’s a lot of truth behind my selective ignorance of how animals live such short lives before they become my dinner. Regarding the characterization of the people who raise and slaughter animals on my behalf, we are all complicit as we want our dead animal parts put on our plates for the lowest possible cost, and so we bring in hungry immigrants to do our bidding. While Caroline and I buy much of our meat from ethically sourced producers and pay the premium, we are not above guilt. If you think the sticker is rude, think about how the animals might feel about being the recipients of our desires.

The signs to nowhere (supposedly the city center) brought me here. I thought I could spruce things up by capturing some greenery and flowers in the foreground so what lies ahead isn’t so grim in appearance.

No time to investigate the innards of the house of our Lord. If God is going to speak to me this day, it will have to be from a distance.

Could this be God making itself known to me? This bull-slug with amputated legs and a mummy-wrapped corpse holding a sphere is about as religious a thing as I’ve ever witnessed without the assistance of powerful drugs. I think it materialized here on its metal spike just for me; God sure operates in peculiar ways.

Giessen, well, I’ll never need to come back here. It feels like a town that sprung up after World War II, that or it was bombed into oblivion and never rebuilt a historical center. Pure function and no character can only mean one thing in Germany: this city was built for blue-collar workers.

Jeez, got turned around and missed my first train. Now I’m on a train leaving from track 9 that’s supposed to stop in Wetzlar, but with the overhead sign saying Koblenz, I have to admit I’m not sure where I’m going. The worst that can happen is I’m fined those 60 Euros for the transgression of needing to navigate in an area not accustomed to foreign visitors as signage is not for the international crowd.

Yay, the overhead sign says next stop, Wetzlar. Just dawned on me that my phone is down to 75% of charge already and that I should carry something to charge it while I’m outside of Frankfurt.

Arrived in Wetzlar without incident and started following the signs saying “Altstadt” or Old Town. I learned something about the region today as I heard water and followed the sound/ I’m on a river. The Lahn River connects Marburg, Giessen, Wetzlar, and Limburg on its way to the Rhein, along with many more small villages along the route.

It’s pretty enough as I approach this half-timbered old town center, and it’s quiet enough not to disturb the living or dead. I should stop for a coffee, but any minute, this bridge might be busy as people start to go about their day.

It would seem to me that by 10:00 on a Friday, the townspeople would be out and about by now; maybe they wake late?

I should have stopped at my first opportunity for coffee at the bridge, but I was certain there’d be other cafes at such a quaint stop along the river. I was wrong. Could it be that when tourism was at its height, city centers became undesirable places to live and that some seriously high number of dwellings here are part of the Airbnb network instead of being used as residences?

The shops are still here, but were they ever for locals? Does someone who lives in Wetzlar really want an expensive cutting board noting Goethe’s short time spent living in this village?

Like Martin Luther, it’s easy to get the impression Goethe stayed everywhere in Germany. Back on the 10th of May, 1772, Goethe, then a young law student traveled here to Wetzlar, which was then the “Capital of Law.” He took a fancy to the daughter of a member of the Teutonic Knights, her name was Charlotte Buff. Learning “that he could hope for nothing but friendship” from Charlotte, he left Wetzlar on the 11th of September, walking along the Lahn River towards the Rhein. Back in Frankfurt, Goethe learned that a friend had taken his own life in the very apartment in Wetzlar where Goethe had been living. These two moments in his life were pivotal and led to the writing of The Sorrows Of Young Werther.

So, here I am in a nice cool spot as it warms up out there. This cool spot is, of course, a church that also affords me the chance to jot some “whatevers” down. Those first whatevers end up being yawns; the coffee beckons, but first, I’ll search for redemption.

Why have I never realized that the church is like a car and the bible its user manual? With the church, you are traveling to a destination such as heaven or hell. Will you find salvation when you enter the church, or is your tank empty? Should you not know your way around the intricate workings of the church, pick up the bible, and it will tell you where to find the headlights, the radio, and windshield wipers so you can see better the direction you are heading. Once you are in the house of worship, you have a chauffeur and tour guide in the form of a member of the clergy.

Back when the church played a much more important role in people’s lives, this was the vehicle that took the parishioners on exotic journeys so they might encounter God, if not here, then in the afterlife. Today, we offer alms in the form of money we pass on to those at airlines, hotels, restaurants, museums, and other places that draw in travelers. Now that God is dead (after we killed him), we can see God not in the church but in how we try to bring grace into our own lives when we turn to the online catalog of consumption and decorate ourselves with the adornments that demonstrate our holiness. We have become the altar, and those less wealthy than I can pray at my feet.

Music is no longer just provided by a massive church organ on Sundays; I have my Rockford Fosgate P300-12 Punch 300 Watt Powered Loaded 12-Inch Subwoofer in the mobile chapel I drive through your neighborhood at night or pull up behind you and vibrate your car too with the sounds of a thumping canticle. This is not meant to annoy anyone; it’s just that I’m a modern religious person, and you are old and intolerant as you’ve not changed with the times. Besides, the reverb in my car is tight, have you heard the horrible echo in one of these old cathedrals?

And the cost of even building a church anymore will never happen again, who can afford it? Take, for example, that an apartment in Frankfurt, Germany, costs about €7,000 per square meter to purchase (or about $850 a square foot in American prices, which would equate to the average home costing about $2 million). Now consider how many massively technical and artistic skills are needed to build a church; you’d have to consider spending at least €15,000 per square meter, add golden altars and ornate paintings, sculptures, and stained glass, and soon you are looking at a quick 2.44 billion Euros to build something about the size of Notre Dame or about $3 billion in U.S. currency. I have to admit I’m wondering why Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos aren’t building their own personal temples to wealth seeing they can earn this much money in anywhere from 10 days to a month or so. Ah, to be a God and listen to the choir of cash registers singing the eternal song of riches.

But money can’t buy time or replace the history of humanity. The old church doors that have been passed through across the ages have allowed people access to a shared culture and the carrying on of traditions. From there, people make their small contribution to each successive generation, offering a wealth that only accrues interest when others benefit from the knowledge that rose out of the desire to improve one’s place on Earth. But first, we must pass through the door.

Maybe an earlier Elon Musk lived in one of these houses; we don’t know his name today, nor do we care as the souls that occupied these spaces are meaningless to us in the here and now other than the possibility they survived war, famine, and plague which allowed us to replace them hundreds of years later.

Our compass points forward, but the arrow of time is merciless. Where our journeys take us and what we glean from these moments will say little of where we traveled today, but they can volumes to future generations who might listen to the story shared on the pages of a bible not yet written.

And then the Lord said, let there be a Greek restaurant with good shade to meet your needs and keep you in comfort. And so it was done. My servant turned water into coffee and manifested tiny bubbles to the water brought to sustain me. Asked if I’d like the Lamb of God, I agreed that the mixed grill plate would be the perfect Eucharist but asked if that came with sacramental bread. Assured I was having a full service brought to my table, I was ready to fall into prayer. Blasphemy, you say? Sure, and Jesus walked on water.

This village offers little to read where things are. Is it dead because there’s no tourism? Do the locals work away from the Altstadt, or is it being depopulated? I have seen a good amount of empty houses, abandoned shells of houses, and places that appear no longer in use but viable. I wonder, at what density of tourists do they drop some kind of energetic vibrance into a place, livening it up in such a way that makes things more exciting? Maybe that’s exactly it, when a place is packed full of people, we struggle to see all things as we move with the flow. By competing to grab the perfect spot that satisfies our sense of the aesthetic, we do not have time to linger in thoughts that ask, what next?

Hah, how does that apply to a mind searching for words when its pathways appear deserted, too? Do I need more words stuffed into this head or more images? This then has me asking myself if being sleepy is the mental equivalent of heading into the night instead of the dawn.

So, was it the coffee that brought wakefulness, the meal, or the combo? True, I’d only had a small salami sandwich on a roll before leaving Frankfurt, and it is mid-day, so maybe that first bite and clocking in my first five miles before 11:00 played a role? I’ll continue to explore this old town center for a bit longer and then flip the coin if I head to Limburg or Fulda. Writing that I already answered the coin flip, I’m going to Limburg, so I explore more of the Lahn River area before heading to other places.

Walking along back towards the bridge when a yarn store jumps out at me. I’m at Stricklaedchen, and they are open. I said to the shop keeper, “Meine Frau alle meine socken machen, ich suchen wolle von Deutschland” she responded, “Schön, hier ist Sockenwolle aus Deutschland.” What more needed to be said? But before I could choose one, she recommended a colorway from Hundertwasser, and well, that was all the convincing I needed. So, either Caroline or I will one day wear a pair of socks with the yarn I bought in Wetzlar, Germany, inspired by Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser.

Other than maybe more photos from the Lahn River, I needed nothing else, so along the riverbank, I strolled on the shady side as far as I could before turning towards the train station. As I allowed my eyes to take in the beauty of these natural settings with the goose family also out for a stroll, I thought maybe this could be my Giverny, and whereas Monet painted with various pigments, I would paint this with words, if only I had the time to linger.

This being a very small town, trains are not all that frequently pulling through. The one I wanted heading northwest was 21 minutes away when I sat down, and so I set to note-taking of my impressions. Obviously, this is not the kind of writing I’d like to be dealing with. Instead, I believe I might be in need of another coffee to fuel my impressionistic sensibilities.

I should point out that the Lahn River is used recreationally with small boats, rafts, and some going in for a swim. Where there are small rapids or falls that are too shallow to navigate, there are side chutes with walkways to pull a kayak or sculling boat along a wheeled ramp that makes pulling it easier while the boater walks next to it over a boardwalk.

Quick change of plans as I disembark the train in Weilburg for a quick walk up to the castle. No time for coffee, but water had to be found as the combo of relatively hot weather with humidity I’m unaccustomed to is still taking time to adapt to, a kind of weather jet lag I’m struggling with. I was in a hurry because the trains move through these out-of-the-way locations so infrequently that I knew I’d better catch the next train heading to Limburg. That departure was scheduled for 70 minutes after I pulled into town.

Okay, I’ve seen the palace, and now I can leave. Just kidding, even if I were late, I’d just go with the flow and let my interest dictate the time.

How deceptive is the practice of sharing just the images that might inspire someone else to see the inherent beauty of a place that any other photographer is also trying to offer others? Maybe all springtime visits to Germany should require travelers to spend a solid month over here so they too might know the amazing days in addition to the cold, wet ones that are inevitable.

Even if this castle were open to visitors (it’s not), I wouldn’t have time to investigate further today, nor would I really want to, as if I like a place, there should be something left unseen that draws Caroline and me back.

When Caroline saw this image, she blurted out that she already knew it as she had a postcard of it when she was younger. I forgot to ask if she had it because she liked the image or if she had visited as a child, as Jutta would load up the girls in their Renault 4 and tour various places in Germany and France.

This is the oldest house in Weilburg, built back in 1576; I’d live in it.

How’d I already get back here? Nothing like a bunch of curved short streets and alleys to ensure that you don’t really know where you are. Had I a fully charged phone, I could have followed where I was on a map and would have known better how long it would take me to get to a point and if I’d reached the furthest corner of the old city center. No time to backtrack; must keep going forward.

Wouldn’t you know that I’d get back to the train station 20 minutes early and then the train is going to be 10 minutes late? Once the train showed up, we traveled along the Lahn River in a wooded area, passing through the occasional tunnel. Before I got out of my seat and headed over to the big windows to start taking photographs, I realized how differently short trains ride. Has anyone else noticed this?

Aumenau next to the Lahn River at once looks amazing under billowy white clouds and the deep green of spring giving way to the summer, but somehow, I sense a malicious farmer in their presence ready to use some townspeople as fodder in a situation right out of the Funny Games horror movie franchise.

As we make our way along the Lahn River, we pass Villmar and Runkel. This is Villmar, and while I tried to snap a photo of the castle ruins in Runkel, the sun was in the wrong place, and my window had too much glare on it. My impression of the Lahn River valley and the villages that have taken up a permanent home here is that one day, I’d like for Caroline and me to take the 55-mile / 89-kilometer walk from Wetzlar to Koblenz on the Rhine River just as a young Goethe did so many years ago. Hmmm, could I walk 18 miles / 30 kilometers a day for three days?

Giessen, Wetzlar, Weilburg, and now Limburg. The fourth city for the day is possibly the better way to spend time out of a major destination as its old city center is bigger with more to see, more to eat, more to drink, and more to visit. And the significance of the strawberries? Nothing other than the personal nod to Caroline once again that these Erdbeeren grown in Deutschland are sagenhaft.

As I was looking at the map of the route I took today to get from Giessen to Limburg an der Lahn, I was wondering if any old, similar route from one unknown place to another might produce the same results, so I looked north towards the direction I was supposed to travel out of Giessen this morning. That destination was Siegen, which I can’t remember ever hearing about before. Had my trip started there and headed west, I would have passed through Betzdorg, Wissen, Altenkirchen, and Buchholz. I looked up all four towns and realized that I might be enchanted by all four, and if that’s true, then maybe all 2,060 cities and 11,042 localities are of interest, too. Well, except for Giessen.

Why do I do this to myself? I didn’t even have to admit I found yarn stores; Caroline would have never known I had passed them. Not only did I see them, but I also went inside with my enabling mindset fully engaged. Maybe this is stretching the truth a bit, but only a bit. While I was in that first yarn shop in Wetzlar, Caroline was still asleep, but while I was in Limburg, she was awake, so I stoked the fires of desire by sending her a quick photo of yarns. She perked up, “Is that Wollpalais?” How the hell did she know that so quickly? Has she memorized all the yarn stores in Europe should someone she knows happen to be visiting that town? You don’t think she could remember that? Then you don’t know Caroline. I told her I didn’t find any sock yarn I wanted, “Too bad, look for lace-weight stuff for me.” She liked the blue and brown, so I got her two skeins of that, and I liked the blue, green, and red, and although I didn’t need them, I could hear the little Caroline devil on my shoulder telling me to support small yarn shops like this during the pandemic so I obeyed. Seriously, I could have kept my mouth shut, but maybe I was overcome by love. Hey, do any of you readers know if voodoo dolls could control me in this way?

It was here at the fork in the road that I checked into rehab, and while that might look like some restaurant or pub to you, upstairs is the 12-Step program for yarn-buying enablers who first go through the process of doing what they know they shouldn’t and then drown their guilt in Spaghetti Eis, Rabarberplunder, or Bio-Körni Brötchen mit Butter and Johannisbeerenmarmalade. I feel like a food alcoholic, and the first step is admitting that I have a problem. Is Lent coming up? Maybe I could give up buying yarn, then?

This sign has nothing to do with what I was doing other than I love these signs and will forever be amazed at the German craftsmanship that is able to balance a golden goblet in the center of such a thing. I mean, seriously, how do they do that?

Not much is crooked; this must be modern.

Caroline pointed out after reading the first half of this blog post that while in Giessen, I said something about the Lord having to discuss things with me outside today, and then maybe an hour later, I was in a church after all. In my defense, I explained that I have now realized that my car and I are my church, and I wear my piety in the outward appearance of wealth I’m able to adorn myself with, so going into churches is an exercise not in finding the sanctity of anything holy but a mere visit to an archeological site where I might find evidence of previous souls. Next stop, hunting for evidence at the Cathedral of St George.

Oh, look at all this badass architecture knocked out back in 1180 to 1235 when making things involved quality work that might last for, oh, say, 1,000 years!

Just the other day, I was thinking, “Damned thing that Nietzsche fellow, having garroted God triggering the German hordes to scream into the abyss, ‘Herr Toller Schnurrbart has killed God, can the Jews be far behind?'” And wouldn’t you know it, his idiot sister Elizabeth took that to the bank of the Third Reich and messed things up for a hot minute, but would we have gotten Rammstein without the devastation and cultural reinvention that followed? That’s right, Good comes out of Evil.

I looked in on the statue of the virgin mother; her eyes and ears were bleeding, and her son held his hand over his eyes in shame for what I would write. Little did I know then what they saw in my future, but the sight was so astonishing. I grabbed my camera as quickly as I could, but the photo turned out to look much as it would at any other church. I swear this happened while, at the same time, I hope I won’t be burning in hell for such ugly things that come out of my fingers. Maybe I’m suffering from psychography, and Satan is controlling my hands, which I can’t begin to understand as these appendages are never idle hands spending time in the devil’s workshop, or are they?

Hey Jesus, no joke, are we cool? He stares down at me, “Does this look cool?” So, I guess I might be damned? “You betcha, so why don’t you just take yourself right out of here, buy some yarn and donuts, and drown the sorrows you’ll pretty much be experiencing for ETERNITY!”

Right about now, I’m wondering how smart it was to eat those 2.5 grams of psilocybin with lunch.

I should just enjoy the great outdoors, smell the flowers, check out the half-timber houses, and be happy to enjoy so much of this beautiful German town of Limburg that was started in the year 910 when Louis the Child granted Konrad Kurzbold an estate here.

Nah, I should just go into another church and finish enjoying my shroomy journey into blasphemic digression.

Oh my God, did I really wander into yet another Catholic church?

I stared at the ceiling for maybe 20 minutes, watching the Eye of Providence making googly eyes at the Eye of Horus, all three of them. Sorry for cutting the one on the left off, but I was having issues remembering how to even use my camera. By the way, I was joking about the Magic Mushrooms; I was on 250 μg (microgram) of some clean LSD.

Stop talking to me, you baby bastards. For a minute, I thought the organ pipes were the fangs of Satan or a dragon, maybe even my mother-in-law. She has fangs, you know?

Do you want the truth? Can you even handle the truth? I had to make some things up because I’ve visited so many churches by now and have learned nothing in those explorations, besides the fact that some great artists have poured entire lifetimes into them, that to offer more oohs and aahs would have just been more of the same where you witness me being enthralled by such magnificence.

I’m writing some of this at Cafe Will, the oldest cafe in Limburg which was established in 1880 or nearly a thousand years after Louis the Child exercised a lot of power for a person of his age. But now for something completely different (I often wonder how many people hear John Cleese of Monty Python every time they read that phrase?)

Oat milk is the alternative milk of choice here in Germany at the moment, or so it seems, so I have an oat milk latte along with a large glass of sparkling water. Sadly, the cafe closes in 15 minutes so I’ll have had a half-hour to sit and consider my next steps. Caroline offered some long-distance help with finding my train schedule and a restaurant, too; I’m going to be dining here in Limburg. The place is called Burgkellar, just up the hill on Fischmarkt. I’d been hoping to leap into one more city today with a jaunt over to Fulda for dinner, but it’s a two-and-a-half-hour train ride, so that’s out of the question.

Dinner number 18 in Germany, and once again, I’m alone. If you think I have Caroline nearby on the internet, I put the phone in airplane mode to conserve battery as it is holding my train ticket. I can’t afford to have the battery die, and after such a long day, there’s that possibility. With that said, sitting in old town Limburg next to these old half-timbered houses and listening to all my neighbors speaking German, I’m certainly having an entertaining experience.

Shadows are starting to lengthen, and the day is cooling. I like the idea, after running around so much today, of taking a nice long break and moving slowly. Time to eat.

My server just let me know that during normal times, this area is full, and getting a table here at Burgkeller isn’t always easy. With Germans not being in the habit of vacationing in their own country, this must be especially tough, especially compared to America, where the need to get out has created a situation where even if Caroline and I wanted to visit Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, those places are in such high demand that they are sold out for the better part of the rest of the year.

At least from my perspective here late in the day, I find Limburg very liveable. Of course, things like grocery shopping and open-air markets have to remain unknown to me, and the rest of Limburg surrounding the Altstadt appears to be quite a large place. Lacking on first blush is frequent rail service; while a train to Frankfurt comes through once an hour and on occasion twice, this is certainly not a travel hub, even if it’s a destination.

Oh, you bet I could see Caroline in a nice Dirndl, especially one that is as modest and cute as this one. The entire ensemble is a relatively pricey €500 or $600 U.S., but when you consider that these are handmade clothes using fabrics that are unique, you might be able to see that this isn’t too much at all.

Speaking of Caroline, if I could have her on live-cam the whole time I’m here, I’d keep that channel open so I could just pick up my phone and say hi to her smiling face so often she’d cut me off as she’d get nothing else done. The longer I’m gone, the greater the length we are going to emphatically share our love of each other and how we miss one another. If I could plant a hug in this blog that would somehow reach further out than my pining at her on the phone and in chat, I’d be adding that right about now.

Vacationing, this is something I should start considering right now as when I get home I’d like and I’m sure Caroline would also like to spend some quality time together. We were just up on the California coast from Monterey to Cambria for nearly ten days last month and in November, we did have a quite long vacation up in Oregon, so where to go? We had to pass on going white water rafting in Idaho on July 4th as we couldn’t anticipate how things would work out with such a fast turnaround of me coming back from Germany and then driving a day and a half to Idaho to start such an adventure in the possible throws of jet lag. Now that doesn’t feel so impossible.

Move out of your expectations. Find the order in chaos and embrace the things that challenge your sense of normal, as routine is a tyranny to the over-stimulated mind of people consuming trash. We must break out and turn off the shit so we might find some flow allowing us to flush the toilets of our minds.

So, who was on shrooms or acid when these figures on the House of the Seven Deadly Sins were made? Actually, I think the creator of these simply had an effective methodology for not letting their mind get too backed up with the excrement deposited by society and knew how to have fun.

I’m on the train returning to Frankfurt refreshed, even though I ran out of steam in Limburg. I wasn’t even willing to wait for the 20:19 to the city and opted for the 19:50 to Giessen, hoping I’d hop on a train there that might get me back sooner. There are a lot of photos I shot today that need to be gone over, color-corrected, and other stuff, so I can pull things together tomorrow. Such is the process of trying to maintain these daily blog entries.

Just had a great dumb idea where I start importing the photos now, thus saving me time later tonight, but while that happens, I cannot take any photos as the memory card is tied up. Having taken a lot more photos than usual, this will take some time, but maybe that’s a good thing, as I’ll have fewer photos to contend with. If you are reading this far along of the drivel that has spilled from me, you are probably already thinking, “Hey John, you could have posted fewer photos so I wouldn’t have to scroll past so damn much to see this entry and get to the next.”

So, however many photos I end up posting, you should know that I shot more than 380 to get the ones I deemed worthy. Hmm, I am just wondering if I should do the same with my words and, after writing 3,000 or so, should select the best 300 and post those?

How nice it is to be on a train, effortlessly gliding down a track with no responsibility other than to keep on my mask. My day pass for the state of Hessen has been well worth the $40 it cost. I do want to stop at every scenic sight and snap off a photo, but the train travels where neither cars nor bikes can go, so even if I were traveling by other means, I’d not even see these views, and if I were on an autobahn, there’d be no stopping whatsoever.

Cows are grazing, farms are glowing, and the Lahn is there on my left with nary a ripple. I’m lulled by the bucolic nature we are gliding through and only wish to experience it all by foot though I’m afraid it would be like sitting in the church waiting for the voice of God to speak with me as I gaze upon the landscape waiting for a message that offers a new take on enlightenment.

We just passed through Dudenhofen without stopping and waiting at the track I saw between six and eight young ladies dressed for going out. It was impossible to know if they were waiting for the train that goes directly to Frankfurt or if they might be on their way to Limburg (highly unlikely) or maybe Koblenz. I have no idea about those cities’ nightlives, but I do know that in Frankfurt, even here at the tail-end (hopefully) of the pandemic, things are far more lively than sleepy old Dudenhofen, especially if you have access to a good dose of LSD, or Magic Mushrooms.

Day 17 – Jetzt In Frankfurt

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Every morning, I wake up and either chat with Caroline or just call her, as I know it’s about 9:00 p.m. in AZ, and she’ll be home. The desk I’m sitting at with a handful of my change strewn about was once the desk of Hanns’ father, Christian Engelhardt. I believe there’s a good chance I’ll be the last person ever using it as it’s heavy and not in the best condition, but there is a lot of history to it and I’m happy to be putting it to use.

What we don’t see is as important as what we do see. I hadn’t noticed the candy dispenser at the eye level of kids in my last photo yesterday, but Caroline did. I don’t believe I ever saw the crews that wash sections of tram tracks, but I have now. The other night, there was a truck with lights and cameras underneath it that was examining the tracks it was driving over, and this morning a crew is power washing the various elements that make up the entry and exit of the subway. The two guys cleaning this tiny corner of Frankfurt are about my age, and after about 30 minutes, they move on to their next assignment.

At some time overnight, a crew moved down Bergerstrasse, where the open-air market takes place, and cleaned that area too. Last night walking up that street, evidence of the festivities earlier was strewn about, but by 7:00 a.m., the place was clean once again. I often see cleanup crews dressed in orange moving down streets with their long whisk broom pushing trash to the street that another crew will come along with their street cleaner to suck up. Sure, you’ll see graffiti nearly everywhere you look, but the environment is kept clean. Regarding pet waste, most people who own dogs are great about cleaning up after them. For how many of those four-legged creatures walk these streets of Germany, you see very little in the way of poop for people to step into. Though I’d bet a Euro that most Germans would say there’s still much too much poop around. I invite them to our apartment complex, where on any given day, there’s more poop distributed between the buildings than I see walking 10 miles a day on these streets of Frankfurt.

Another nice two-and-a-half-hour breakfast start of the day, now with another blog entry behind me. As I looked outside to begin the next part of the day, I had my first pang of anxiety that I’d be leaving all of this. There’s no doubt at all that I want to return to Caroline sooner rather than later, but I’ve often dreamed about just such a trip to another country where I could move from coffee shop to coffee shop, writing something that was longer in form and if I were lucky, part of a book I might want to publish. Instead, due to my family responsibilities, my day is dictated by schedules that are not solely my own. With that, I’m not able to fall into the flow I’d otherwise like to. So my compromise is that I write this travel diary in order for Caroline to share the day with me; hmm, have I written exactly that in the last week?

We all tell stories, with most of them lost to the passage of time. Some things persist, but so often, they are objects without context. Of the stories that survive, they are the histories of those that make history. The common person is lost in the anonymity that so many of us have existed, perished, and were simply forgotten; how could we possibly carry around so much information about the infinite details that would pile up if we recorded such things?

This then might ask the question, “Why are you doing this, John?” My answer is easy: it’s because this has never been done before in such detail. “How will it survive you?” That is the more difficult question to answer, but I hope to carve some time out of my life to put what I consider the more important things into a series of printed books that I can donate to a university library. Short of that, maybe this will survive intact on Archive.org, but who really knows? If it turns out that I’ve been on a fool’s errand, I will not have been the first nor the last.

Something I might like to investigate while I still have a sense of control over my mind is to ask an anthropologist what I am missing in this long multi-year narrative. On the other hand, what fun would this be if I were following a formula that would bring this into some kind of textbook of details? Opinions, attempted humor, fun, sorrow, discovery, and the mundane intermingle in this hodgepodge of musings where I hardly understand the thread that holds them together. Maybe there are not supposed to be threads but only the chaotic unfolding of one day to the next, with the narrator describing random bits that somehow made sense to the mind, sharing what it thought relevant.

Caroline’s maternal grandmother, Helene Linnenkohl nee Vespermann, was born on 16 November 1894. This photo is from 1959, when Helene would have been about 65 years old.

I didn’t have all day to lay out over 1,000 postcards Jutta saved over the years, but this would have to do. After she bought a postcard, it went into the void, and apparently, they were never sent to anyone.

Before the age of digital images, I didn’t bother to always keep notes about travels, and Jutta’s first two visits to America have always been a question mark in our memories. Well, due to my mother-in-law keeping everything, I came across these two things she saved that offered me help. Her first visit to America was in June 1996, and her second visit was in October and November 1997. Now, all I need to do is go through Jutta’s photo albums we made for her of those visits, and I can put a timeline back together of when we did what.

I’m away from the chore of sorting and removing and have stopped for lunch. My destination is Jutta’s, where I’ll try to get her to a doctor’s appointment. I say try, as there are a few moving parts to this operation I have to navigate, and as usual, my language skills feel inadequate. I’m sure I can push through this, and afterward, I’ll likely gain another gram of confidence that I’m able to maneuver the linguistic minefield that is German. With my carb-laden lunch out of the way, it’s time to hoof my way across town.

Oh really? Concerts are coming back. The Batschkapp as it exists now is not the Batschkapp of our 20s, and there’s really no interest in seeing the new location, but I do smile when I see their logo.

Some things are just cute.

Well, that took a huge left turn. I got to Lebenshaus, and since I didn’t believe they wouldn’t provide the service in-house that I was supposed to bring Jutta to, I asked, and sure enough, a lady comes by on Mondays to do exactly the procedure Jutta requires, which is a medical pedicure. So, come Monday at 10:00, this will be taken care of in a much more convenient way instead of getting Jutta in and out of a taxi along with her walker or taking trams and then having her walk uphill for 800 meters to the appointment. All I had to do was ask at the front desk, call, and make an appointment. So, while I didn’t have to juggle the movements, I did have to deal with my linguistic deficit and now feel better for having dealt with this in a much more efficient manner.

With that out of the way, Jutta and I celebrated with a walk over to the Main River again, where we planted ourselves for a solid three hours. Ice cream, Coke, and coffee were on the menu, along with Jutta and I doing our best Waldorf and Statler from the Muppets Show. Jutta dismissed the show as silly when her children wanted to watch it, so she had no idea what the reference meant. With a nice breeze and a bench in the shade, we were set up to just take it easy. Somewhere during our enjoying the river and the cast of characters passing by, I think I heard a bit of lament in her voice that she hadn’t spent so much time here in far too many years. I have to wonder if she’s ever been here or only considered it, figuring she’d do it another time.

I love these cargo bikes that people use for moving around children, dogs and going shopping. I’m surprised that they are about $2,000 to $3,000 with an electric assist in the more expensive versions, and yet I see them locked up on the street as though nobody would cut the lock and steal it. Oh yeah, this is Germany (Not Berlin) where the likelihood of theft is far less than the country I hail from.

Watching the clouds is never a bad thing.

After walking back to Lebenshaus with Jutta, I headed over the river to Sachsenhausen to Gaststätte Atschel, another local establishment serving apple wine and regional foods. I can admit that I’ve been mixing things up and moving into culinary territory that doesn’t include Grüne Sosse (green sauce), nor did I order Handkäse mit Musik (hand cheese with onion – the music comes from the combo of cheese and onion as the flatulence toots a little tune). While I’m certain I’ve shared why I’m so enamored with Grüne Sosse, I’ll share again. This Frankfurt specialty is made of precise herbs that I cannot obtain in the United States. These are chopped and mixed with something called Dickmilch, which is a thickened sour milk product.

Worked out that I should go somewhere tomorrow. My first inclination was to hit Munich, but the weather forecast includes a prediction for rain. So I looked northwest toward Koblenz, and the weather looked perfectly inviting. Now, if only the Deutsche Bahn app would let me buy my tickets. Drats, I just remembered that I have a scheduling conflict as I set up a time to take a long walk with Klaus tomorrow in the late afternoon. Maybe I should hit Koblenz on Saturday or be truly daring and just show up at the Hauptbahnhof in the morning after breakfast and get on the next train that arrives somewhere in more than ninety minutes and under two hours?

Day 16 – Routine

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Breakfast at Eifler Bakery in Frankfurt, Germany

The day repeats another as I fall into a routine. Just getting to breakfast can be a task as I find four or five things to write. Finally, I’m hungry enough, and with a lunch date scheduled with Jutta, I better go eat now so I have an appetite when I see her. I’d like to visit a different cafe but this one is the closest to where I’m staying, and it’s a known quantity, so I go back. I sit down to eat, but before I can touch a thing, I’m setting up the computer. Instead of getting right to work on yesterday’s post, I realize I should add something to the day I’m already a few hours into. Then I jump back into yesterday, sip my coffee, and start in on my first Korni-Brötchen. Switching channels back and forth is a type of mental gymnastics that has me wishing to finish the previous day’s blog on that day so I can start fresh the next day, but getting home late and getting up early creates its own dilemma.

You know how I shared yesterday about meeting that 77-year-old lady today at Eifler Bakery? Well, that happened, but you already knew that. And now that I’m done with yesterday, I can fully move into this day. Time for the 2-mile (3.2km) walk from Bornheim-Mitte to Dom/Römer.

Open-Air Market on Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

Seeing this is an entry about routine; here I am again at the Wednesday open-air street market in Bornheim-Mitte. As I sat at the bakery, the traffic going by into the market was markedly heavier than the number of pedestrians here on any other given day. I certainly understand the appeal of these pop-up markets and wish something like this existed in the United States, and no, this is not like a farmers market in Arizona that has haphazard collections of (mostly non-food) vendors with no certainty about who might show up. So, without the ability to count on consistency, how would someone be able to predictably shop for what they need on a week-to-week basis?

Bicycle Bell in Frankfurt, Germany

My nemesis the bike bell. It stalks me, mocking me as I walk by, daring me to give it a ring. With me passing thousands of bikes a day locked to all manner of things, a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder yanks at my better sense, begging me to ring the bell to hear its tone. I do my best to avoid this behavior when others are near as it startles them into thinking a bike is approaching. But some of the bells are so persuasive I give them a little push or snap, and their “Klingel” offers me a small delight that is simultaneously a guilty pleasure. If only you knew what I know.

Tram Stop on Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

From one U-Bahn stop to the next, I eschew getting on board to make a quick race across town as I never know what I might discover, although I do enjoy the people-watching on the train, too.

Dead Coyote in Phoenix, Arizona

Last weekend, Caroline mentioned an encounter she had had with a dead and somewhat odoriferous coyote she passed on her morning walk. I texted back, “Photo or it didn’t happen,” and of course, she had one ready because she’s Caroline!

Dead Bird in Frankfurt, Germany

So I present her with a recently deceased bird from the streets of Frankfurt, Germany, because I love her.

Balloons on Zeil in Frankfurt, Germany

So now I know that 100 balloons are not enough to take someone aloft. Every day I walk on Zeil between Konstablerwache and Hauptwache I see at least two vendors selling these colorful, shiny balloons that inevitably coerce many a parent into putting one into the hands of their children.

Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany

Back on May 28th, my 4th day in Germany, I presented readers with the front of this building without identifying it. This is the backside of that same building known as the Museum für Moderne Kunst. The “S” in Kunst is silent and means Art.

Random shop in Frankfurt, Germany

I don’t really know what this shop is for as it’s all over the place; it might even be an art project from the coffee shop next door. What drew my attention first was the “Beuys will be Beuys” t-shirt in the window, which has the same design that you see at the top center of the image. Then there’s the “No! I won’t do that,” and maybe my favorite of them that I should have focused on is in the top left and hard to read. It says, “Du Dumme Sau,” which translates to, “You dumb sow,” and features the image of Klaus Kinski, who famously unleashed these words.

Lebenshaus St. Leonhard in Frankfurt, Germany

Finally, over Zeil, I arrive at Lebenshaus near Römer. Fill out the visitation form, visit the men’s room to wash my hands as part of the visitor’s protocol, and put on my FFP2 mask, as other masks are not allowed. Walk up the two flights of stairs and over to room number 207, where Jutta stays. Some small talk and in a minute or two, we are on our way to lunch. I’ve tried finding another restaurant Jutta might enjoy, but I don’t like the others in the area, so we are stuck with Zum Standesämtchen. Behind this choice is Jutta’s ability to walk distances in an amount of time comfortable to her, with us being able to get back to her living facility should we not find a ground-floor restroom she can maneuver into.

Jutta Engelhardt in Frankfurt, Germany

Our indulgent lunch clocks in at nearly three hours before I bring Jutta back to the place she cannot remember and has previously been lost trying to find after venturing out. Getting away from this corner of the city in the afternoon, I have limited opportunities of what I might make of the rest of the day. Looking for a coffee shop where I might sit down and write a bit seems like a good idea, but nothing talks to me until I see the street leading to Kleinmarkthalle. Some fresh fruit sounds appealing.

My other visits to this old market were in and out just like everyone else, but today, I can sit by the back wall, and so that’s just what I’m doing. I finish my strawberries and now wish for a coffee, but the heat and humidity are trying to convince me to stay put and enjoy the occasional breeze that wafts through. It’s only now, sitting here without my mask, that I essentially feel normal but realize that the sounds that should be echoing in this cavernous space are a fraction of what my memory says they should be.

Römer in Frankfurt, Germany

Speaking of sounds, while at the end of lunch as we were paying our bill, we spoke with our Greek waiter about how different things have been. He misses the tourists who were about all the places at Römer ever served. So, while they have customers, it’s hard enough to sustain the vendors here with high rents due to being in such an important historic district. But that’s beside the point, what I was aiming to share is that you are hearing the tiniest of fractions of voices from other lands. Last night, I spoke with two African ladies from Ghana, and on our way over to lunch, Jutta offered best wishes to a Thai lady who’d just gotten married, but these are the exceptions these days. Missing is the roar of a hundred languages filtering above the noise.

And then Caroline awakes and we have our first conversation of the day. Just as on other calls, one of us always seems a bit tired, probably because this call happens just after she wakes, while our next call in about eight hours is when I’ll be trying to go to sleep.

Kleinmarkthalle in Frankfurt, Germany

I took a coffee outside Kleinmarkthalle and sat on the wall next to where the Cuban fellow had been playing his clarinet for a few extra Euros. It’s shaded on this hot and humid day when the sun has returned. Next to me was a lady packing her bag onto the side of her bike, and my curiosity got the best of me. What I saw wasn’t extraordinary; it is, in fact, quite common, but I never bother talking (intruding) into the comings and goings of people just doing normal stuff like shopping. Today, I couldn’t help myself. I explained how infrequently it is that I see people older than about 55 riding bikes in America and asked if wasn’t too rude to ask her age. She gladly obliged me while stepping onto her bicycle and told me she was 74. Just minutes later, another lady, this one with pure white hair was asked the same question; she is 77 years of age. Finally, I asked a man his age. He couldn’t remember but said he was born in 1946, so he’s about 75. He also shared that if he drove, it would take him 30 minutes to get home from Kleinmarkthalle while on his bike; he’d be there in 15 minutes, but he added, “Riding on these streets at any age is stupid.”

If you are wondering if I only chose older people to ask this question, you would be wrong. Maybe it’s the demographic that shops at this old Frankfurt landmark, or maybe it’s because so many younger people are walking, taking trains, or are on one of the thousands of scooters scattered across the city.

Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

Back to Bergerstrasse and one of the better murals I’ve enjoyed passing. If it looks familiar, that’s because these cute blobs or “city ghosts” are the work of Spot, who also drew Caroline’s favorite mural on Burgstrasse.

Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

In my next incarnation, I might create a blog about nothing but doors of the world.

Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

Will I ever be satisfied that I’ve captured enough views of Frankfurt that, should I need to refresh my memory at a future date of my time here, I can put together enough fragments that it will all come rushing back to me?

Saalburgstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

Packed up more stuff from Jutta that will be returned to the earth tomorrow. Working with Caroline to figure out if any of the flatware with some silver content has any value, which she will have to figure out from America, which is as ridiculous as it sounds, seeing there are people here who should be able to do this but are claiming no knowledge of how to find metal buyers in Frankfurt. With ten days left until the painter arrives, things are looking great to have the apartment empty. About to drop off some more clothes to the Red Cross donation box down the street, and then I’ll fetch some easy dinner. If all goes well, I’ll be back in an hour, work on the photos I already selected and be asleep well before the midnight hour.

Döneria in Frankfurt, Germany

The crew at the Döneria had a good laugh seeing me here for three days in a row. When my Döner with double meat and double chili pepper was handed off to me, one of the guys said, “See you tomorrow.” I’ve become a regular, and my routine is well on its way to being established.

Day 15 – I’ll Probably Do Something Or Other

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There are no fixed plans for the day, though there are things that will certainly be done. I’ll discover what I’m going to do as I fall into them. Now that yesterday’s writing chores are finished, I can go on with experiencing this Tuesday, June 8th, 2021.

Putting things in their place and sorting others so they may be where they need to be. Emotions and artifacts, the past and the present, all have their purpose in time, but like moments in time, they tick by, and everything moves forward. Our work is to resolve our needs to be present and learn what’s important due to the ephemeral nature of lives that are always in a state of change.

I’m feeling a sense of conflict regarding what I thought I might be doing in Germany and what I find myself doing. While I understood that my mother-in-law would enjoy my time with her, I thought I could manage with her seeing four or five times a week. Knowing that I’ll be gone in a few weeks, I feel that I’m cheating her if I don’t afford her every moment I can, as July and August might prove quite lonely for her as visitation is reduced to once a week when Stephanie makes time for her mother. The hope is that Caroline and I will be back around the middle of September, but now I’m re-evaluating our need for part of that visit to be split between vacation and family time or if we should give it all to family.

Enough has been said in my previous blog posts about my refamiliarizing myself with Frankfurt, so maybe I’m giving that a break though there’s a lot I’ve not done yet and might warrant some sharing, such as a visit to the Gallus area, Palmengarten, and some museums. Though I may not share much on that side of things doesn’t mean I’m not deeply engaged. When my senses were tuned to dropping into Germany, they are now focused on what it means to eliminate many of the traces of our lives and what ends up being important as a life heads for the exit.

So much of what’s in my mind feels like nascent fleeting sparks of potential where I can’t even see the light but sense that it’s there, kind of a quantum inspiration I hope to discover.

Am I still shocked to see cigarette vending machines on the street? I suppose I am, as they’ve been gone from America for so long now I can’t remember when streetside smokes were last available or if they ever were. But what’s really shocking is that a pack of Marlboro is just under $10. While this price is about 50% more than what Americans pay, there is no shortage of smokers; I’d venture a guess that there are comparatively far more smokers in Germany than in the U.S.

So while children could buy cigarettes on the street and the alcohol laws are pretty lax, for example, In Germany, there are three drinking ages: 13 – minors are allowed to consume beer or wine with their parents or legal guardians. Age 16 – minors are allowed to consume beer or wine without their parents or legal guardian. At 18 – adults are allowed to consume distilled alcohol. There is no dialogue currently going on about legalizing marijuana, while in America, recreational weed is starting to be available in more and more places. One problem with legal weed in Europe would be the population density as the smell would infiltrate everything, and while Germans have accepted cigarette smoke in their presence, I’m not sure how the pungent smell of grass would go over.

I had written something totally other that was meant for this image of the train tracks that just end here while about 100 feet away on the other side, the track begins, an old line no longer in use with the rest of the track already removed. That text was sliced out of here and saved in another document that is still being hammered out. In that potential post are my observations about Jutta and how someone born ten years before the end of World War II in Germany experiences adolescence in a devastated post-war environment trying to navigate a derailed national identity. Returning to momentum after you’ve been brought to a full stop requires figuring out new paths. So there, while I won’t share the entirety of my thoughts over there, I’ve not simply baited and dropped you off.

I’m experiencing a Germany that is unique at this time; everything is mine. Being vaccinated and a foreigner, while strict travel restrictions are still in place, offers me some benefits such as always being able to get a table in an uncrowded cafe, the churches, and museums are still empty, with many people working from home the trains are never filled to capacity. I don’t wait to take photos as there are no tourists jockeying for the same view. This is offering me a perspective on Germany that will likely be unique in my lifetime.

Compare this to America, where people across the country and within their own states are traveling everywhere right now. It seems to me that the only Germans who want to visit big German cities are those who live rurally; otherwise, the German people want to visit other countries to escape what they must perceive to be a lack of striking differences within their borders aside from those who travel to the German Alps and up to the Wattenmeer, the two exceptions. So Germany is mine, though my time to poke my head into all the places I might want to visit is limited.

This says everything you ever need to know about the differences between Germany and America.

Tunnels, like life, go places, but you cannot see the destination. As you enter, you are shrouded in darkness (ignorance), but along the way, you harness light (knowledge) to illuminate the way. When you arrive you might integrate with those on the other side and make bonds, discover another culture, and leave better off than you were before (wisdom). Sadly, most never seem to enter the tunnel and are happy to stay within the confines of what they know.

I’m already in a new day, on the other side of the glass, up the stairs. What I mean to say is that I look at this image from another day while also trying to write the first paragraph for Day 16 before a nice 77-year-old lady strikes up a conversation. We speak about her daughter’s love of America and her mother’s American boyfriend after the war, while she recommends Oberursel as a nice place to live should we retire here. But that’s tomorrow, and I shouldn’t be writing about the future while trying to maintain the illusion of being in the here and now about Day 15.

A walk away from Saalburgstrasse took me to Saalburgallee and over to Eissporthalle before I turned into Ostpark for a walk towards the Main River and an encounter with Skatepark Osthafen, full of skaters too!

The first bridge I crossed is called Honsellbrücke, and this bridge, which picks up where the other leaves off, is called Osthafenbrücke. I’m now on the south side of the Main River with a good idea of where I’m going compared to when I started this walk, not knowing exactly which direction I was traveling. After living in Phoenix, Arizona, for so long, it sounds strange not to know which way I’m going as I live in a grid with roads that only go east/west and north/south. While there are landmarks in Frankfurt that could act as markers of direction, they are difficult to see on the streets of a city where you are surrounded by four- and five-story buildings.

Just as I’m repetitive in my words, I can be repetitive with my use of images too, especially when we are talking about this view of the Frankfurt skyline I’m so enchanted by.

Speaking of enchanting, these are Bembel, earthenware jugs used for serving apple wine, and are a sight and taste that delights Caroline. You should be able to guess by now what I’m about to do.

I’m taking a dinner pause after my long nine-mile (15km) walk around Frankfurt. I’d like to leave the following details to the margin, but I’ve been waiting for Fichtekränzi Restaurant to open, and now I’m here. It, like so many other restaurants that didn’t feel they could maintain their reputation and quality of food with take-out only, closed eight months ago and just reopened this week. Strangely, I’m the only person sitting inside; admittedly it’s beautiful out, but even the patio isn’t full yet. Before the pandemic, I dare you to try to get a table in less than 15 to 30 minutes.

I’m not sure that the two-mile walk back to where I’m staying is going to be possible; I’m tired here at 10:30 p.m.

My tram stop is at Dom/Römer, where the U4 will have me delivered in minutes, but of course, there’s time for a photo or two.

The words Deutsches Reich are what caught my eye; I had to take a second look to see the date 1910 and Drei Mark below, letting me know that these floor decorations were based on an old coin, not Nazis.

Minutes later, I’m onboard and zipping across town. Being in a hurry to get anywhere is a disappointment as there’s so much to take in when moving at a snail-like pace. Time to find tomorrow and be done with today.

Day 14 – Shelter

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Rain, rain, and more rain. I could run outside under the shelter of my umbrella and fetch something to eat, or I could sit here in this mostly empty apartment with the window open, listening to the rain, wishing I could have something to eat. The rain didn’t use to present such a problem back when we used to live here, but we’d have had food on hand, and if we knew it was supposed to rain in the morning, we could go to the store the day before to pick up a package of croissants. I don’t have that luxury today as I’m practicing minimalism and trying to make the best of it.

While I’m sheltered from the weather, I stare out the open window, looking for a break in the downpour, but the water just continues to fall from the sky. Checking the radar, I can predict that this storm cell should be passing in the next 15 minutes or so. Until then, I’m forced to contend with my bible (I mean my laptop) in seclusion, although this limitation creates a small amount of resentment. I sit in front of this computer day and night when I’m not on the move and have nothing else to turn to as I’m here without wife, books, synthesizer, car, or the basic amenities one might enjoy in the place they live. All I have is this screen and the wide-open window looking out on the street so I can judge how heavy the rain is; that’s it. I’m starting to get the idea I would not have made a good monk living in a monastery.

At last, I brave the great outdoors of a wet Frankfurt after learning that the storm would be here to stay through 10:00 p.m. At the bakery, I was reminded that today is the day that those of us vaccinated or recently tested for COVID are allowed to sit indoors. After these two weeks of standing outside and then sitting outside, we are now moving quickly to the old normal. Here I am, seated in a dry, warm dining area, connected to free WIFI instead of my hotspot, with access to a toilet should I need it, and I’m feeling like a fully participating member of society. Is this my reward for following the rules?

Maybe an American reading this might think, “But John, you’ve had this in America for some time now.” The difference is that I didn’t want to go to restaurants in the United States due to the angry belligerence of a vocal minority who wanted to flaunt any safety protocols. Here in Germany, the adherence to respecting others offers a sense of shared sacrifice and the protection of a dense population with vulnerable people among them. Hopefully, the next step is no more border controls that question what my purpose is in entering another country.

Funny how we all desire shelter from freezing, wet, and hot weather. We’ll voluntarily wear the clothes best suited for the environment and utilize transportation that best meets our needs. We seek out food that satisfies our hunger and strive for work that guarantees some small part of our happiness and allows us to protect ourselves in our homes. But then a pandemic strikes, and it can only have come from the evil intention of those who want to control us and steal our rights as though they also might want us to voluntarily live in homes with locked doors and windows where we pay rent, mortgages, and property taxes to wealthy landowners and banks, wear clothes that shame us for having sex organs, garments made by exploited immigrants in faraway countries, and have to buy food from an agricultural-industrial complex that serves the elites with trillions in profit. But supposedly, this one thing, the mask, was the final straw that made the charade transparent and the intentions to defraud us of liberty so very obvious to the well-informed who watched information of questionable source material unfold on the internet that offered us a Grand Truth. Whatever truth you’ve found on YouTube, keep it to yourself as I find mine in my immediate reality, the books I’ve read that span history covering science, philosophy, and sociology, and from my sense of fitting into nature as best I can.

Enough of that and on to something different. The German language is something I can’t adapt to fast enough. I obviously leaned hard on Caroline during the years I lived in Germany and while I could make my way around the country, I made do with this limited resource I had. Today, I’m suffering from this ignorance. My needs and desires are far more nuanced at this time in my life, and I have some fairly strong ideas of how I want things to be. I’m not able to easily bring these wishes across to the person I’m in front of attempting communication, especially when they are performing a service that requires them to move through those of us in line in the most expedient manner possible. So I just have to agree to almost every question and accept whatever the default options are. My rudimentary German also opens me up to others, now testing how far that knowledge of German goes; it’s not very far. As I struggle, some will offer a helping hand by bringing their limited English to the floundering foreigner, but I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable with this equation

“Noch mal einen Kaffee, bitte,” (another coffee please) followed by, “Zum Mitnehmen?” “Nein, fur hier zu trinken” (To go? No, for here). For a language I use on such rare occasions, I’m surprised that I get by, but I want more than that. Caroline will be happy to read these words because should we move back to Germany one day, I’ll need a better proficiency in this language if I’m to get a visa that will allow me to stay longer. Should you wonder why my wife doesn’t teach me German, seeing how she’s German, well, Caroline’s over-analytical mind will answer me with the most common way of saying something in German, and then like someone with Tourette’s, she has to blurt out the other four ways it could be said unless you are in Rhineland-Palatinate where it’s said these two different ways. Okay, she’s not that bad, but you get the idea.

If a vacation is measured by doing what you want when you want, then I live on a permanent vacation, and this trip to Germany is simply a change in geography. Here I am, two Brötchen (btw, Brötchen is the diminutive of Brot, a.k.a. bread), two coffees, and two hours into doing just what I want while the weather does what it wants. I wonder what Jutta’s doing?

I arrived at Lebenshaus and found Jutta in the dining area with her fellow residents, cutting up fruit for a champagne-based fruit punch being prepared for the afternoon’s music appreciation hour. I’ve told my mother-in-law that it’s like she’s living at the Schatzalp on the Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, except she’s not in the mountains of Davos, Switzerland, but right next to the Main River in a valley, close enough. In this kind of sanitorium where shelter is found for those who are growing weak, Jutta has adapted very well to life in her small room, and she’s just incredibly happy to see me so often.

A short visit in the morning that will be followed by a second one in the afternoon after I have lunch should put a nice spin on the day for Jutta. Maybe I can even get her out for a short walk over to the river if the weather continues to improve.

My lunch bears mentioning as it was a strange play on traditional items I’ve been eating for the past couple of weeks. Here at Leib & Seele, I tried their mashup of veal schnitzel stuffed with green sauce herbs, an egg, and Handkäse served with Bratkartoffeln. I found it to be an abomination, but it will sustain me. Continuing with a theme I plan on wearing out, it is as though the hand cheese and egg took refuge in the schnitzel as a way of finding shelter. Yeah, I went there, as why not hammer at the inane for the sake of a groan?

And, of course, I’m inside because I can be. For Germans, it’s been seven months since they could sit in a restaurant, and takeout has been their only option. It is nice outside, and under normal circumstances, I would have gladly sat streetside for the people watching but nothing is yet quite normal. Then, while I’m here considering what I might write next, a song that will become a featured track from my 2021 trip to Germany starts to play. It’s called Save Your Tears by The Weeknd. Why do the cheesy songs in heavy rotation always seem to find my ear is a mystery?

I should drink this espresso and pretend to eat the Apfelstrudel I’m not having, but if I had, I’d certainly need to get out of here for a serious walk to work that off. Should you, too, be growing bored of these food reports, I’m right there with you and realize I need to move on to something, anything else.

QR codes are everywhere and on everything as the pandemic inched us closer to a contactless society. With the opening of restaurants and shops, some QR codes are quickly being removed as menus are put back in customers’ hands, and appointments to enter certain stores are no longer needed.

What will be around for some time to come are COVID tests until the population of Europe is vaccinated to the point of herd immunity.

Churches were closed for a time, and then when they did open, they were only there for services. Now, as I walk by the wide-open door of a church in Frankfurt, I feel invited in. Every state and city has its own schedule for reopening, dependent on their infection numbers, so while I was able to visit churches in other cities, their incidence of COVID had already reached manageable numbers. This is the interior of St. Catherine’s Church (St. Katharinenkirche), which I’ve photographed a couple of times already on this trip, but only from the outside.

Walking, walking, and more walking. Added three miles as I walked from Konstablerwache to Westend and Palmengarten. I walk and look, I walk and listen, and as I walk, I realize I’ve missed so much of the city back in the day because I was always on my way somewhere instead of nowhere in particular. So, I walk some more.

Walked into St. Paul’s Church (Paulskirche) for the first time ever and found myself alone. This mural on the ground floor represents the procession of the elected German and Austrian representatives into Paulskirche, who in 1848, presented a Charter of Basic Rights and a Constitution trying to bring a unified Germany into democracy.

As I walked upstairs, the pattern from the chair legs and the cleanliness struck me, but now you know what this abstract image is.

John F. Kennedy spoke here back in June 1963, where he commemorated the “German cradle of democracy.”

During World War II, this church was mostly destroyed. In rebuilding it, the outside remained true to form, but the interior was greatly simplified.

There’s a lot of history shared on the ground floor about the democracy movement that started right here in Frankfurt for Germany, along with the Goethe Prize from the city and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.

This dragon guards the Standesamt, which is the German civil registration office responsible for recording births, marriages, and deaths. Unless you’ve studied German history, you probably don’t know that the country of Germany was created in 1871 from the previous collection of German states. The Standesamt was established across the country, taking effect on January 1, 1876.

Hello again, Jutta. Another walk to the river with my mother-in-law, enjoying a short video call with Caroline and a coke. Life is good.

Back to walking with a good amount of extra walking. Walked into the Church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche) and then back to Bornheim-Mitte.

Time for some domestic chores so I can keep this going as I drag my laundry to a nearby laundromat that I hope I can use without too much frustration of getting change and figuring out how the soap goes in and the dryer works. Oh, you think it’s so easy? You’ve never visited a German laundromat. Though I will admit that the last time I did, I probably was mighty stoned.

Longest kilometer walk I’ve taken today, likely due to the sense of dread eating at me as I made my way to the Eco-Express Waschsalon, where I sensed panic awaiting me. The worst thing that was going to happen was that I’d have to Skype Caroline in to decipher what I was brain farting on, but I got through with it, and my stinking clothes are in the washer and presumably getting clean. No matter, they are being spun around in soap and water and will have to be cleaner once they are out. It wasn’t until my clothes were in the washer and I was sitting down that I noticed the British flag on the screen, signifying English instructions were available. Oh well, I’m improving my survivability in Germany this way.

I skipped picking up a Döner kebab on the way as it looked closer on the map, and I thought I might throw in my laundry and then go fetch something easy, but it’s a good way back, so I’ll hope my clothes are done before they close at 10:00, it’s 8:20 right now. I shouldn’t concern myself with my clothes being left alone as already a few people came in, stuffed their things in a machine, and took off. There are other machines where the wash is long done, but no one is here tending to it; maybe they went home for dinner? I’m so negatively conditioned by the American experience that I’m too paranoid to leave my dirty, wet laundry alone as though some underwear sniffer will come and drag all my clothes away.

The laundromat itself is immaculate, unattended, and without a bunch of sketchy freaks in the place. If you’ve ever used a public laundromat in the United States, you know exactly what I mean, and the idea of using them at night should send shivers up your spine. I’m hungry after having walked nearly 7 miles after lunch.

Nice, it’s only 8:35, and my clothes are in the Trockner trocknering. I see Döner in my future. Hmm, four levels of heat; I hope I don’t light my clothes on fire. Three minutes already passed; I’m wondering if I should check it. Four minutes, this might be the proverbial watched pot. The great thing is that my stress level has gone way down.

I was greeted by four smiling and laughing guys at Döneria at the corners of Weidenbornstraße and Seckbacher Landstraße. I thought I was over-posting about food but the Döner sandwich I had was seriously the best of the half dozen or so I’ve enjoyed while here in Germany.

The king of Döners.