Wandering The Capital City

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Berlin, Germany

Staying up to date with my writing is going to be a minor chore, as I feel that I need to finish with the previous day before embarking on a new one. Last year’s trip to Europe tracked my step count; this one is tracking my word count. Three days into this exercise and I’m somewhere near 4,400 words put on to the page. You may notice I said three days while only two blog entries exist so far. While I left on the 4th, that travel day blurred into the 5th because after leaving Arizona in the evening, I landed in Germany the next day. I felt that since I left Phoenix and did not have a night of sleep and arrived in Frankfurt for the evening, the flight ended up being a teleportation problem with timing, and I simply needed to finish the 4th on the streets of Frankfurt. Enough of those details. Above is my Airbnb.

Berlin, Germany

The sky was overcast when I woke at 6:30 with a startle that it already felt late. Well, that early in the morning was certainly not late, as I’d finally gone to sleep last night at 23:30 and dreamed of sleeping until at least 8:00 to settle my jet lag. After the obligatory things one does when preparing for the day, I was finally out in the breezy cool of a clearing sky and heading to the Schöneweide station.

I needed to buy a train ticket for the next six days to avoid the hassle of having change or cash every day to do so. That should have been easy enough, but the English version of the menus offered choices that were ambiguous. Settled with my choice, I find that I cannot buy this with my credit card as I don’t have a PIN for this particular card. Feeling the pressure to finish my transaction so others don’t have to wait for the amateur to figure things out, I threw a 50 Euro bill into the machine, received my 8 Euros in change, and had a ticket. A message flashes momentarily on the screen to inform me I need to validate my ticket before starting to use it. Where does one do that? With my ignorance reeling at having to deal with the situation, I ask myself if I should or can get validated on the train with my new 6-day pass.

Arriving at Neukölln via the S45 to transfer to the U7, I see a guy sticking a ticket like mine into a red unmarked box that, with a stamping sound, spits his ticket back out at him. This must be the act of validating one’s ticket, so I do the same, and with that, my ticket now has a time and date stamp. Makes sense now that maybe the buyer purchased the ticket the night before when leaving the station and doesn’t want to lose 10 hours of usage.

Berlin, Germany

Read your instructions beforehand, or else the place you think you are going might turn out not to exist on the high-level overview maps found in train stations. The first person I asked could not tell me which side of the track went to Mittenwald. Upon checking my itinerary I see that my location is on Mittenwalderstrasse near the Gneisenaustrasse U-Bahn stop. That the guy I asked about the “Neesen au Strasse” stop was able to decipher this was amazing. On the train, I learned my stop was called “GaNeezen au Strasse.”

Berlin, Germany

So here I am, sitting in the bakery at the intersection of those aforementioned streets, waiting for Die WollLust yarn store to open at 11:00. It’s nice to sit down to write a short while and indulge with an Erdbeer-Vanille Plunder (strawberry vanilla croissant), a double espresso, and water before going shopping for the wife. Whatever I end up getting her, I’ll also be looking for some sock yarn for myself.

John Wise at WollLust in Berlin, Germany

Sock yarn heaven for the spoiled man whose feet only know the pleasure of being wrapped in hand-knitted love. Caroline being absent from this leg of the trip required me to stand in for her yarn store pose and ask the co-proprietor to take my camera and deal with the fat old guy looking silly; somehow Caroline looks far cuter in this pose than I do. Also, I rather enjoy (I mean tolerate) watching her shop for all the unnecessary new yarn supplies she inevitably adds to the hoard when we travel, but with her still in America, I had to shop for her. So what’s a good husband to do?

Yarn from WollLust in Berlin, Germany

You buy all the yarn. And that yellow she asked me not to buy (she was very specific about this; I quote her email here: “No pink/black/yellow – something more neutral, please don’t get something super bright just to “teach me to get out of my comfort zone,” but if you think it is beautiful, I trust you.”) well, I bought yellow, it’s peeking out from underneath the red. Sadly, they were fresh out of pink. Hah, no, they weren’t, but my cruelty has boundaries.

With a full day ahead of me plus the fact I have some issues, some aversion issues, to carrying bags in public, the husband standing in for his relatively famous wife Birgit Freyer, who owns this shop called Die WollLust (I’ll translate that as Yarn Fetish) threw a fellow guy a favor and kept this nearly 2kg of yarn and stuff and is sending it to us just before we go home.

Berlin, Germany

This was the last view of the kid looking at the fountain before I punted it into the center cup of water down at the end. It was worth 40 points, which translated into 3 euros off my lunch. That probably didn’t happen, but don’t go thinking I wasn’t imagining it. Okay, so I wasn’t really imagining it, but I needed to write up something for this photo that I found appealing, so some nonsense felt in order.

Berlin, Germany

In my goal to separate myself from the main tourist area, I found an outdoor table in front of the Marheineke Markthalle, where I sat down for a bite to eat. With some ravenous birds pooping on all the chairs, it wasn’t easy to find a poop-free one, but perseverance paid off. Now, under the shady trees, I’m watching parents, hippies, oldies, fascists, and students walk by. It’s quiet here compared to the bustle of yesterday. Interestingly, there are more bicycles riding by than there are cars here; next up are people pushing strollers, though people on foot definitely dominate.

Many of the people are with friends. Most are dressed smartly even though there’s a dearth of vibrant colors. I can count dozens of people going by, and morbid obesity has missed this neighborhood. Of the 100 or more students walking by, not a single fat kid was among them. Some boisterous teen boys are showing off their adolescence with raucous boy behavior, but they are not the rule. The amount of English being spoken is interesting, more than I thought I’d hear. One of the tables near me was talking about VR and all things 3D, while the next table was discussing the pros and cons of social media. As for countries of origin strolling these streets, it looks like we could be in Los Angeles.

Under these bright green trees, the day could not be more spectacular. The occasional light breeze rustles the leaves that silently flutter and paint the ground with undulating shadows. If the sun dips behind some clouds, the effect on the temperature is nearly instantaneous. Still, here we are on a Tuesday afternoon, and it’s well after lunch, but people are hanging out, taking extended pauses while they linger over a coffee or conversation.

Berlin, Germany

The people hanging out here are seriously hanging out, some for nearly 300 years. Not one is drinking coffee. What brought me to a cemetery in Berlin, you might ask? A right turn that suggested this old place could be a tad more interesting than the busy street. I didn’t recognize any famous people, but maybe that’s because their names are all in German.

Berlin, Germany

There’s an extraordinary amount of graffiti strewn about the German capital; though much looks similar to the work of others, there are some serious works of art. Unfortunately, I’ve either been on the train and couldn’t capture them, or something is obscuring them from getting the shot that would show them in their best light. This is typical of the more common stuff seen all over town.

Berlin, Germany

The Landwehrkanal runs through Böckler Park near Kreuzberg. I suppose it’s easy enough to see what the attraction is to walking the dirt path on a nice sunny day with swans in the water preening themselves. So, I’ll just leave any other descriptions to your own imagination.

The holy land a.k.a. Schneiders Laden. This icon of the Eurorack synthesizer community is directly across from Kottbusser Tor and nearly impossible to find. Be careful here as the area is trying to find you; well, the cast of shady characters might be. While not overrun by skinheads, this corner of Berlin certainly has its fair share of sketchy-looking people who might qualify as thugs. Once you get past that and find the hidden door, you are in for some wallet/bank account emptying Goal Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.) gone rampant. Try to get out without your dream modules. Somehow, I did just that, but that might be true because I have just about everything I could want. The module or two I’d really love have not been released yet, so I felt safe to go into the den of temptation.

Schneiders Laden is the sponsor of Superbooth, which starts this Thursday. One of the salespeople at the shop was telling me of her performance this Thursday at Seaside starting at 19:00. Her name is Jessica Kert, and her Bandcamp page can be found here. Another woman in the shop I spent some time talking with was from Florida and only recently got the bug; she got it bad from all indicators. While talking with her, Brandon Fessler of Mordax showed up weighed down heavily by severe jetlag. Moments after that, Scott Jaeger of Industrial Music Electronics texted me that he just landed and was wrecked. Hopefully, everyone recovers in time to re-exhaust themselves with some very long days and nights at the conference.

Berlin, Germany

Time to find some dinner; little did I know that exercise would take nearly two hours. I get hungry, and I get picky. The walk I took was nice, but the food looked dull, so I kept on walking.

Berlin, Germany

I didn’t walk long as I had to give in to the call of nature in the worst way. Half a dozen times, I considered just going homeless guy style and discretely pissing against a tree or in a corner so no one could see my junk, but then this magic toilet house appeared. I put my 50 cents in, the doors slid open, I walked in and the doors would not shut. I tried all the buttons, I tried waiting, I looked for a sensor I could flail at, but those doors just stood wide open. So I did what I had to do: I stood there with my back to passersby and took my much-needed pee. With the pressure ratcheted down, I felt I could focus better on compromising for some food and just get whatever, but just as Caroline already knows, that’s not in my playbook. I kept walking until I found exactly what I didn’t know I wanted.

Berlin, Germany

Berlin cuisine looks like shit to me. No wonder everywhere you look, you find Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, and Middle Eastern, while döner kebab shops are everywhere. Sausages are fairly ubiquitous, too, but nothing struck me as truly inspired. So what did I do? Did I visit a Michelin 3-star joint? Nope, I opted for the Berlin famous döner. So why the photo of the canal? Well, sometimes the photos of döner look like someone took a dump in a pita pocket.

Can and Aleks working at Coffee Fellows on Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany

Meet Can (pronounced J’chon, kind of like John), aged 19, from Turkey, and Aleks, aged 25, from Croatia. I did tonight, and it was great chatting with these guys, mostly in German too. Coffee Fellows is one of the coffee shops open relatively late here in Berlin so I stopped here after dinner for some caffeine to keep me going and to give me a place to do some writing. It was awesome to talk to these two young men about politics and nature, how dangerous conservatism is, how amazing the world’s cultures are, and how important enjoying life is. It’s kind of funny how American these two really are, meaning they are very outgoing and enthusiastic to talk with me. They are the future of Europe as long as extremism is able to be held back.

Into Berlin

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Frankfurt, Germany

Sleep is never easy after such a long flight, but exhaustion helped me stay in bed for a bit more than six hours. After a quick chat with Caroline, I was in the shower and soon checking out of the hotel. The Ramada sits on the corner of Kaiserstraße and Weserstraße in the former red-light district. I walked over to the Hauptbahnhof to check in regarding my online ticket to Berlin; things were easy enough, so I went for a croissant and a coffee along with the wifi connection so I could post yesterday’s musings.

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof in Germany

In a few minutes I’ll head over to the track I need to be to board the I.C.E. to Berlin.

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof in Germany

The train arrives with a minute to spare and we end up leaving a couple of minutes late. No big deal, as minutes later, we are already traveling smoothly and quietly at 150km/h or 93mph. No clickety-clack of the tracks, no loud kids, matter of fact, I could hear the guy a row ahead and on the right side of the train chewing his food.

It’s a beautiful blue sky day with some billowy clouds dotting the sky. While it’s a brisk 45 degrees outside, the signs of spring are abundant. The trees are sporting fluorescent green new growth and are casting long shadows that fall on the train windows. Outside of those windows, the landscape changes from small farms to villages, and in between are tree-lined corridors. Underpasses and random buildings are decorated with graffiti next to the tracks, though the grounds are spotless.

An hour east and the sky has grown heavy. The sun still shines through breaks in the clouds, but rain could easily be a part of my day. The occasional windmill has been spotted in addition to small solar panel farms. The train is a bit too warm for my liking, though most everyone else here still has a sweater on or at least a scarf, while jackets are stowed overhead.

On the train to Berlin, Germany

Back in the 1990s, when I first rode an I.C.E., there were very few cell phones on board, and not a person talked on them while traveling. Today, the ringtones pierce the quiet, and just as in America, there are those people who have to stare at the screen for a moment to determine what to do next instead of silencing the ringer or simply answering it. I’ve not seen another person looking out upon the landscape; maybe they’ve made this journey once too many times, and it’s all boring for them. From my view, I recognize how little of Germany I’ve actually seen.

The second class is a zoo. The gauntlet of inconsiderate kids being kids clogs the aisle, but it is the only path that brings me to the restaurant car to get a bottle of water, so I must run it. Is first class more civilized, or are those of us up here more demanding of civility? I do have a complaint now that I’ve visited the other cars: it’s significantly warmer in my car, uncomfortably so.

On the train to Berlin, Germany

We stopped in Bebra, but the announcement was in garbled German, so I couldn’t follow. Nobody but some Deutsche Bahn workers got off the train; no one got on. In this small town of around 15,000 are over a dozen churches. The name is a shortened form of Biberaho or Village on the Beaver River. Upon leaving the small train station I am now traveling forward where for the previous hour and a half I was seated going backward.

It’s 11:20, and we’ve just pulled into Erfurt train station, which, a week from now, I’ll be returning for a few days before continuing my travels eastward. Prior to leaving the States, I was nervous about my rail travel as I feel I grow rusty between visits to Europe. Now that I’m here, I remember the dependability and ease of traveling by train. I tentatively penciled in a couple of side trips but was uncertain if I’d actually make them as maybe the train wouldn’t be on time or what have you; instead, I’m reminded how convenient this all is.

On this leg of the trip to Berlin, we finally hit 300km/h or 186mph. There’s a bit more noise from the wheels below the train, and there’s a sharper vibration, but it’s still very quiet and easy enough to walk the aisle. Passing another train can be a shock, and the pressure in the tunnel we are traveling through makes my ears pop. While a flight would have been a fraction of the time, it would not have been so elegant nor offered so much to see, such as the many fields of rape that are in full glorious yellow bloom.

The next stop is Halle on the Saale River. This was an early Celtic settlement with the name Halle reflecting the word Halen, which is the Brythonic (Welsh/Breton) word for salt. The river Saale is from the Germanic word for salt, too, so as you might have guessed, this region was important for salt harvesting. Its salt history extends back to 2,300 BC, while much more recently, the town gave the world the composer George Frideric Händel. Our final stop will be Berlin.

Döner Kebab in Berlin, Germany

I try not to panic much with the anxiety of finding the next place, and so far, things are working out great. My Airbnb is only about 15 minutes by foot from the train station at Schöneweide. I was starving by the time I dropped things off and had my keys. I was going to head back into Mitte (city center), but a Kebab shop looked good enough for how late it was, so out of convenience and since I do like döner, I made do. The thing was only 5 euros and was giant. On to the city.

Berlin, Germany

This will be my stop-and-start point for the next week in getting into Berlin proper. I’m in former East Germany, for what it’s worth.

Berlin, Germany

Might as well start at a landmark so I have something to focus on later and know where to head back to reconnect with the S9 train I’m exiting. I’m at Alexanderplatz, walking in the direction of other landmark buildings that can also act as proverbial breadcrumbs.

Berlin, Germany

Wow, such a nice touristy site I just learned about; this is the Neptune Statue, built back in 1891. The four women seated around the god of the sea represent the four major rivers of Prussia, as Germany was known before 1871; they were the Elbe, Rhine, Vistula, and Oder.

Berlin, Germany

With all the warnings on this sign about various concerns while using the park, they forgot to add that stickers are forbidden.

Berlin, Germany

Sadly, this church was closed as it was unsafe for visitation. Its relics have been removed until a determination is made on what to do with the facility. Maybe I’ll find another church later.

Berlin, Germany

Another church wasn’t too far away from this one called St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, but wouldn’t you know that it is closed for renovations?

Writing in Berlin, Germany

From arriving at the main station to trekking out to my stop at Schöneweide on the S9 train line and my subsequent return via train to Alexanderplatz, I’ve gotten my first minor impression of a unified Berlin, and it is fraught with mixed emotions. I’m in a Capital city that I feel is trying but failing to create a national identity. Germany is approaching 20 years since the fall of the wall and reunification. I was living in Frankfurt back then, was newly in love with Caroline, the computer age was blossoming, and techno music was starting to make Europe dance.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Eastern Bloc was toppled like proverbial dominoes under the strain of authoritarianism. From those ashes, optimism sprung to life while simultaneously complexity was on the march with broad implications for the working classes.

Prior to the modern post-industrial age, the common person found solace and sought relief in god as people turned to the church. In the age of information, our careers have become the church, and god is the money we use to pay our bills. As humanity flocked to consumerism, it looked for salvation in the ability to purchase happiness and find its identity in what it had newly acquired. What purpose was this power-to-shop going to offer?

Once the novelty of buying all the upgrades wore off, the newly disaffected addict of all that was new was left wondering, “What’s next?” The obvious answer was, “Another upgrade.”

While many are satisfied with this cycle, those who were being marginalized by expanding technology and a flood of immigrants began to realize that they were made redundant without a safety net of renewed purpose. The secular state was certainly not going to tell these displaced people to look to god for help, while it knew well enough that jobs for that sector of labor were never to return.

John Wise at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany

It is my summation that governments and business leaders hoped for the tech industries to offer a solution. The problem here is that with each step forward in convenience, the underlying architecture of work becomes more difficult to train for. Hundreds of millions and, in some emerging cases, billions of people are being connected via networked services through a myriad of apps. New solutions and conveniences must be invented continuously. We no longer operate with long-term maintenance in mind, where repetition is a primary career; we are in constant need of people who can reinvent the future.

Berlin, Germany

Turtles do not invent anything, but they do know how to survive. They pull their head back into their shell and wait for the danger to pass. Through the first part of the 21st century, as progress moved at a breakneck pace, many people pulled back to see how things would play out, but what was happening was a global shift in geopolitical resources and the redistribution of the labor pool. The turtle was made irrelevant while it waited too long to figure out how to adapt.

Berlin, Germany

Humanity is, in some ways, like water: it adapts to obstacles and continues to flow through blockages. At times, it has to build up pressure until it finds a weakness to exploit a new path. From this point, it can explode forward to alter the landscape.

Berlin, Germany

There’s a danger to this type of increasing pressure in that humanity is people and not water; people turn to an authority that can marshal the pressure to break out of old paradigms and find new ways, even when the new ways are radically different than the past. There are signs of conflict all around Europe, shadows of wars, and uncertainty. With the fall of the Soviet Empire, the self-defeating Brexit, and America’s potential turn towards isolationism and maybe even fascism, the blueprint of upheaval may be exposed.

Berlin, Germany

I’m sitting in the Berlin Dom; well I was sitting in the Dom until I was kicked out early for a service that required everyone to leave who was not on hand for the sermon.

Awareness of the role that these places of worship played in the past doesn’t help us define a purpose or general function for our species. Today, there are more people visiting cathedrals as tourists with a desire to take selfies instead of finding solace or giving alms.

I believe Germany’s government foresaw this identity crisis and lept at trying to quickly create an inclusive European identity, but British and American moves to conservative politics might yet undermine a positive evolutionary path where continuing peace would be allowed to thrive.

Should nationalist-driven fear of change and the unknown take deeper root among the less fortunate and those being catapulted into the margins, we, the people of Earth, could witness humanity take two or three solid steps back.

Berlin, Germany

My first impressions here in Berlin are that people are generally uncertain about far too many things. On a recent visit to Hungary and the regime of Viktor Orbán, the people seemed fairly positive; then again they already have a strong-arm anti-foreigner zealot at the helm. I hate to imagine the return of another ultra-conservative charismatic leader in central Europe who rallies large swathes of the population to celebrate white exceptionalism.

Over the course of my stay in Germany, I’ll be taking a hard look at the question of whether multiculturalism is dying.

Berlin, Germany

My original plan had me visiting museums tomorrow; I’m reconsidering this idea as I feel I need to go and see where people actually live in Berlin.

Jetlag is playing me like an evil twin pretending to be me, just different enough that someone who knows me will sense that something is off. Waves of minor incoherence sweep in, but the momentum of traveling is trying to carry me through. There’s a kind of shame of being on vacation and only barely being present due to my exhaustion, a bit like wasting time. I’ve stayed out here in the city center as long as I can, trying to prop myself up with coffee, but it’s now time to skip the hot dude show and head to my room in East Berlin.

Entering Another Dimension

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John and Caroline Wise

I’m at Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 4 as I write this. The flight I’m catching is taking me to Frankfurt, Germany. The selfie above was taken before my Uber driver pulled up to whisk me away. Caroline will follow my path in two weeks. You’ll learn more soon enough.

In and out of line, through security in seconds, and over to my gate when I come upon Cowboy Ciao, and I know what I’m having for dinner: the Stetson Chopped Salad. This salad is famous here in Arizona, but I thought it was gone as the location in Old Town Scottsdale is out of business. Now I’m at the gate and have minutes to go before we start boarding.

Tonight’s flight is about 11 hours non-stop to Frankfurt. I’m missing Caroline already; the separation anxiety is huge.

Condor Airlines to Germany

Thirty minutes out of Phoenix with only ten and a half hours to go. The flight crew said something about the evening meal and then another meal two hours before we land in Frankfurt. Seems like a late dinner and the next meal feels like an intrusion on dinner in Frankfurt. As is usual, I’m kind of pissy about being squeezed in here, though I should try to bring my focus to the incredible luck of being 33,000 feet above sea level where the air temperature eight inches to my left is -58 F. We are flying northeast at over 550 miles per hour, and I have a computer in front of me, a phone with a hundred hours of music on it in my pocket, and we successfully took off.

Words are being hard fought for, but I’m compelled to write as a large part of this journey into Europe earlier than Caroline is for me to exercise my word-smithing skills. Part of the struggle tonight is in part due to the fact that I’m writing at night and I never write at night. When we approach Frankfurt, it will be shortly after 8:00 a.m. Phoenix time, which is normally the hour I sit down to start writing, should I be so inspired. I foresee a problem with this arrangement as, by that time, I’ll likely be out of sorts from the shifted sleeping/night/day cycle that is about to happen.

I find that as I age, I’m dealing with jet lag differently than I did when I was younger. Though I might also suggest that when I was in my 20’s I didn’t much care about mental agility when I was flying over the Atlantic as I was consumed by the reality that I was either falling into Europe or returning to the United States. I worked on the adrenaline of being excited to travel; now, I look forward to the nuances of being in a place and finding appreciation in different ways than my young mind cared to consider.

We are crossing over the southeast corner of Utah and entering Colorado airspace. It’s 10:00 p.m. now so it’s as dark as a cave out there without a moon to illuminate the sky and outline of mountains. I’m guessing that we’ll start to encounter hints of daylight in about 3 to 4 hours. Luckily, we weren’t requested to shut the window coverings before we departed, so maybe we’ll get to experience the flight into the sunrise.

I’m taking a break in anticipation of my second dinner being delivered soon. I’ll offer a rundown of Condor’s premium meal upgrade after I’m done with it.

A mere two hours into the flight, I’m sleepy; of course, last night’s restless sleep, and now, with my stomach full, I have some food-induced coma waiting to happen. To fight the drowsiness, I’m listening to Rammstein, hoping some heavy driving beats and grinding guitars will help push me to stay awake.

My meal was okay, with the appetizer ending up as the best part of the presentation and quality. Just as last year, I had a shrimp and smoked salmon salad, while this time, the entree was a chicken teriyaki that was what it was. Some bread, cheese, and a dessert rounded things out while a KitKat was sent back. Coffee is now in front of me, trying to fight my inclination to drift into a nap.

In between trying to write, eat, and stay awake, I’ve been reading The Soundscape by R. Murray Schaffer. It’s too early in the book for me to offer much of an opinion yet. On the map, we are aiming for Winnipeg, while to our east is Fargo, North Dakota. I’d say more than half the passengers are asleep. The debate if I should try to get an hour’s nap is going on inside of me as I look at the global map in my seat back and see that dawn should start in about two hours. Meanwhile, Mein Herz Brennt, and so do my eyes.

Flying over the Atlantic

Four and a half hours in this jet, and we are still over North America. The dawn arrived an hour ago, and the first rays of the sun are now bouncing off the ice crystals on my window. I don’t know who closed the shades as I was certain I was never really asleep, but whoever reached right by me to close them did so so stealthily that I never stirred. The cramp of trying to sleep has gotten the best of me, and I’m hoping Petite Meller is energetic enough to supply me with a jolt of caffeinated sounds.

Only a bit more than six hours left before we land. That sounds like forever right now. If I could leave the window shade open, I could be hopeful that the daylight would help get my brain thinking daytime thoughts, but the majority of my air companions are sound asleep.

From the book The Soundscape, “Hearing is a way of touching at a distance, and the intimacy of the first sense is fused with sociability whenever people gather to hear something special.” (page 11) This was an aha moment for me as I’d never considered just how effective music is at touching the inside and outside of the body and how at concerts, the movements of the crowd create a swarm of syncopated sensuality and community. How might I one day create music if I knew that my ultimate goal was to reach out and stroke the listener with my sounds?

The eye points outward; the ear draws inward. Is everyone looking and failing to listen? I often am drawn to looking after hearing the absurd where I’d like to recoil. It was pointed out in The Soundscape that the eye has the ability to turn off the visual by closing a flap of skin; the ear has no such mechanism. I recently bought the best earplugs I could find to turn off the outside world as the noise level of banality is becoming overwhelming. What is the negative impact of those who I’m forced to draw inward due to their proximity?

Flying into Germany

As I head into Europe, I go to listen. I go to listen to myself, though, not to listen to others. I’m going for music and instruments that make the sounds I desire to hear. I want to listen to history and listen to the whispers of the prayers that echo out of the past in the cathedrals. I do not wish to listen to the sound of war or death that has plagued the continent but to find myself at peace. The language barrier helps erect a sound fence as my primitive German skills make it easy to blur the sound of voices.

Funny that this is the first time in all of my flying years that I’ve been listening to music nearly non-stop since we departed some six hours ago. The isolation has allowed me to withdraw from the other passengers without the hope of finding some random conversation. I’m not tuning in the coughing, snoring, crying, or rustling of papers, blankets, or the seats when people use them as leverage to push their obesity out of the chair. Everyone moves by in silence; the drink and food carts glide by with bottles releasing their pressure upon opening for others, but not me.

It’s 4:45 in the morning, and the majority of passengers continue to sleep. We are under three and a half hours until we land, where all of these well-rested people will land at 5:00 in the afternoon and will likely not be very tired come 11:00 p.m. I, on the other hand, am exhausted and hope to pass out around 10:00 p.m. central European time.

Our place on the earth is approaching a point over the Atlantic south of Reykjavik, Iceland. It’s much colder out here at -80 F, and we’ve slowed down to 490 miles per hour. While we could have maintained our speed eastward, I’m guessing that arriving early is not an option when gate space is such a limited commodity at this incredibly busy airport. I peek out the window, and I’m momentarily blinded by the broad daylight being reflected off the clouds below us. Inside the plane, it is still the middle of the night. Too bad there’s not a cabin on board for those of us who’d like to transition to the day earlier.

Frankfurt, Germany

From touchdown to customs, fetching my bag, withdrawing some Euros from an ATM to boarding a train to take me to the Frankfurt Bahnhof, where I walked out the front of that massive building and a few blocks east to check into my former house of prostitution now remodeled as a Ramada Hotel; this was all done in less than 90 minutes.

John Wise in Frankfurt Germany

It’s 19:19 as I sit down on a wall at Hauptwache to do what I should have been doing 35 years ago: I’m writing. The punks are long gone, though a few homeless people are nearby as though they never left. It’s a bit cold, and I’m hungry, but I had to stop right here across from Hauptwache Cafe to sit on this particular wall because back when I first came to Frankfurt with the U.S. Army, I wouldn’t dare sit here. The soldiers are gone while, in some way, they were replaced by Chinese tourists.

Black is still the primary fashion choice, and it doesn’t much feel like anyone has stopped smoking, though I’m spotting more vapes than on previous visits. Strange to think that nearly 35 years ago, there was no internet, cell phones, unified Germany, the EU, a common currency, digital cameras, Starbucks, or bike-sharing services. While much has changed, I’m struck that, in many ways, nothing is really different from back then. Let me correct that; diversity is greater today.

Frankfurt, Germany

Crazy is alive and well here, with my stroll over to Konstablerwache not failing to disappoint me. The only difference now is in regards to the number of people talking on phones with Bluetooth devices plugged discretely in their ears, allowing them to seamlessly blend in with those who are simply talking to themselves.

Eating at Ebbelwoi Restaurant in Frankfurt, Germany

From the end of this shopping pedestrian zone, I turned south towards the Main River, where I walked into Sachsenhausen, intent on having some traditional German dinner. Apfelwein-Wirtschaft Fichtekränzi is amazing, but tonight, it is amazingly busy, and impossible to get a table. Next door is Gaststätte Atschel, who won’t be able to seat me this evening, even though I’m just one person. Lucky me, as Ebbelwoi Unser said, they’d squeeze me in. Fifteen minutes later, I’m at a table with eight other diners.

Handkäs mit Musik is a Frankfurt tradition of a cheese that is marinated in vinegar and oil and served topped with onions and caraway seeds. The “joke” of “mit Musik” is that by eating this concoction, you’ll be making music later. While I was eating, an old friend answered yesterday’s question I texted him about restaurants to eat near the main train station; he’s too late on his reply for me to benefit from his answer. He’s surprised when I tell him where I am in Sachsenhausen and we agree to meet after I finish.

My main course was two schnitzel cutlets served with Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes) and, of course, green sauce. Better known as Frankfurter Grüne Soße, this regional treat has grown in cult status, with festivals now celebrating it; I cannot come to this city without indulging. I hope that I will never grow bored of eating here.

Frankfurt, Germany

The friend who contacted me was Olaf Finkbeiner. He’d asked if I would arrive at our meeting point in Elbestrasse by train or taxi; I told him I would be walking. He thought me crazy, but to me, Frankfurt is a tiny place easily walkable. A sunset walk along the Main was far more interesting on my first evening here than getting on a subway. Along the way, Olaf let me know that Plank Bar was closed; he’d forgotten it was Sunday night.

Olaf and John Wise in Frankfurt, Germany

We walked back towards the Hauptbahnhof and went to O’Reilly’s Irish Pub, which might not have been the best place to meet, but it was open. Crowded and loud were the negatives; meeting with Olaf after not seeing him for the past five years made up for any inconvenience. Talking about technology and politics for the next couple of hours went by incredibly quickly before I cajoled this guy into stopping for a selfie to prove to Caroline that Olaf and I had indeed met. We agreed to get together once again after Caroline arrives, and with that, I dragged my jetlagged and fatiguing self back to my former whore house, where once again, I was paying for the opportunity to spend some time in one of these tiny rooms.

The Dark Side

JWise Photo of the Day, Thoughts

Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

I’ve read somewhere that social media allows us to portray our lives in a kind of perfection that filters out the ugly realities and mundane moments we don’t want others to see. So today is my come-clean, soul-purging blog post of the banal stuff that will demonstrate how boring my life is aside from the glamour shots I post.

On a typical day, we wake between 4:50 and 6:15, and if motivated, we might go for a walk. To be honest, Caroline is up early Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a run and maybe a short visit to the gym; as for me, getting up early to go for a walk with her is a recent phenomenon.

Buttered bread

On the other days, we often read a bit before reluctantly heading to the kitchen to toil over making breakfast. Okay, so it’s not really laborious, but I figured that starting the day in a kind of agony would sound more dramatic. The fact is we often share the duties of putting the water on for coffee, heating a pan to poach a couple of eggs, and the other little details required for getting this first meal of the day going.

Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

Besides showering, tooth brushing, and such, we try to squeeze in a few more minutes online, catching up with the bits and pieces of news and personal interests surrounding our hobbies before we have to make our way to the car. On the drive to Caroline’s office, she’ll be arguing with me. Not really, but this is supposed to be about the grit that my idealized waxing about our good fortune neglects, so I thought I’d throw that in there. Actually, on most days, she is reading to me from the passenger seat. At the moment, we are reading the lengthy tome titled “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara Tuchman, which weighs in at over 780 pages.

Open book

On occasion, we’ll mix things up and add some spice while taking a pause from our current book to dip back into “The Plum in the Golden Vase,” which we’ve been reading for a few years already. This book of five volumes stretches across 3,600 pages, and we are currently in volume three. Written in the 16th century by an anonymous Chinese writer (or writers), it has been nice to pick up from time to time using it as a kind of soap opera break from our usual non-fiction routine. Revisiting the characters a couple of times a month for years lets us feel a kinship and familiarity with the people that live on with Hsi-men Ch’ing.

At this point, Caroline walks into her office after some lost minutes, during which we stare goofily into each other’s eyes and feel awkward about people walking by as we kanoodle. With that, I’m likely off to some random coffee shop for writing and the beginning of our chatting with each other over the course of the day, sharing a few moments of affection here and there.

From writing, shopping, cooking, cleaning, or dabbling on my synthesizer, my day is one of maintenance and, to a large extent, goofing off, seeing I’m trying to be honest about the non-glamorous side of life.

Eight hours after dropping off the wife, I’m back in her area to walk around and up my step count before she emerges from her office building. It may sound impossible, but I don’t believe she ever fails to greet me with a smile from afar before getting in the car and then professing her love and how happy she is to see me. The next question is inevitably, “What’s for dinner?” My answer is like a clockwork that is redundantly stuck in the same moment into perpetuity, “Food.”

Because the subject is “The Dark Side” and in the spirit of trying to keep this real, it often happens after Caroline has to cork things off all day; she’ll hotbox me in the car in the mistaken belief I won’t notice if it’s silent. To this day, she still doesn’t understand how I qualify a fart held for hours as being obviously stale as opposed to fresh.

Sometimes, we’ll return to the book, but usually, we’ll talk about events that occurred over the course of the day. At home, unless we stop somewhere for dinner, I’ll busy myself finishing dinner or getting it going if it’s a simple preparation.

The next four to five hours for Caroline will be split between fiber arts, the internet, watching a DVD, and often all three at the same time. As for me, if I’m not watching screaming human candles run around, I’m doing something with Blender, Bitwig, the synth, or my blog. Oh, I almost forgot to share that there’s a decent amount of pestering I perform with near habitual regularity where I poke, prod, and offer all kinds of “treats,” such as hickeys that Caroline turns down with equal regularity. Through all of this, we try to smile and laugh with one another multiple times a day before converging in the coziest of beds ever created for taking two people to sleep.

Munich, West Germany 1989

JWise Photo of the Day

John Wise and Caroline Wise née Engelhardt 21 October 1989 in Munich, Germany

Back on October 21, 1989, in Munich, West Germany, Caroline and I took the very first selfie of ourselves in the reflection of some random building. We had driven down with friends to attend Fantasy Filmfest just four months after we started dating. This is the first photo of the two of us together.

The standout film at the fest for both of us was Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm though we were primarily here for the Dario Argento film Terror at the Opera that featured a soundtrack by Brian Eno. We also took in Hellbound: Hellraiser II and a second Ken Russell film titled Gothic. From here memories get foggy or maybe we were too stoned as my memory says we also saw Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste and an obscure film titled The Navigator about some guys who dig into the earth in the middle ages to emerge in modern times as they tried escaping the plague. We are both certain we watched Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik down in Munich, but the film is not listed on the Fantasy Filmfest archive site so maybe it was showing in an offsite theater. Regarding Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste, it was a gateway drug to his greatest film and an all-time favorite, Meet The Feebles.

I’m 26 years old in this photo; Caroline is only 21. Little did we know that 30 years later we’d still be together and 25 of these years we’d be married.

Myriad of Things

JWise Photo of the Day

Trip planning notes

There are countless things to get done before the date is upon us. The date I speak of is when we leave for vacation. We do not take this responsibility lightly, as returning from a major respite we should not have to fall into the need to deal with a bunch of odds and ends that should have been wiped from the slate prior to our departure. To that end we have both visited the dentist recently, I’ve been to my doctor to ensure my health is as good as it can be and that my prescriptions are cared for through September. Our taxes were done on time this year, basic apartment maintenance as it pertains to summer has been dealt with. Perishable foods in the fridge have been consumed.

The car will have a full tank of gas waiting for our return, the plants will have been watered, the A/C set so we are not too uncomfortable the evening our flight lands. All of our bills are on auto-pay, but then again they always are. While out on the road or riverway our minds should be unencumbered with thoughts of future responsibilities or worries about what we might have forgotten. It’s inevitable that there are things we’ll need while out and about, but to the best of our ability, we check and recheck our minds for things we’ve needed on previous journeys, and for the two months prior to leaving we see our fair share of Amazon deliveries.

We do not go on vacation unless we are able to detach from everything out of our normal routines. Our time away from home should be focused on doing, exploring, and learning.

This should all be obvious, but our earliest days of vacationing usually intruded into busy schedules that saw us dropping everything at the last minute and bailing out. All of those things we were pushing out to a more convenient time simply got pushed again and then upon getting home, we’d feel a bit overwhelmed by everything we needed to catch up on. We’d fly out of state or country with dishes needing to be washed or get home with moldy leftovers and veggies in the fridge. Now we leave with every stitch of laundry washed and fresh sheets on the bed.

Why am I sharing these silly details? Because by making time for all the things we clear out of our routine responsibilities, they go far in helping lend a greater sense of luxury to our travels. It’s an exercise in personal responsibility that adds an incredible amount of value to our enjoyment. So prior to your next vacation be sure to clean the toilet, mop your floors, vacuum, see your doctor, change the oil in the car, don’t forget to put your mail on hold, ask someone to keep your door clear of ads, flyers and other things that will let people know you are away. Vacations are a reset that reminds you of how important breaking out of patterns is and that while you are out learning, playing, and exploring that you are finding some of the best parts of what it is to be a better person.