Day 34 – Not Paris

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

I’m up early for the train to Paris. Sadly, I get off in Mannheim, where I’ll transfer to Worms. Not so sad really, as Worms is my first chosen destination. I’m visiting history. Tomorrow’s final train in Germany will be the one that will begin my return to the United States.

I can’t emphasize enough how much I love 1st class rail travel. If I never had to fly again, I could be perfectly content on long hauls via train. After not driving a car for five weeks, it will be strange to get behind the wheel again, but that’s not for another day yet.

My redundancy is in full effect by now. How much can I say about the many fields of wheat we are passing? A couple of years ago, when I was here in early April, there were fields of rape outside my window.

I love a dramatic sky, even if it means bloating a blog entry with too many photos. While the anonymous reader will wonder why the author has shared so many, you should be aware that I’m not trying to entice others to visit these places or resonate with the same things I find beautiful or relevant; I post all of this for two people, my wife and myself.

Worms, but not what you think. This relatively small city 50 miles south of Frankfurt plays a large role in German history as the location of much of the “action” in the Nibelungenlied, a medieval epic poem, and the beginning of the Reformation five hundred years ago in 1521. I feel fortunate to be here during the 500th anniversary of such an important event.

I’ve mentioned these cleaners in another post during my stay in Germany. I can only imagine how different American cities might be if people were given jobs such as these and all of our places of commerce were kept neat and clean (and mostly without the use of leaf blowers).

It was the Edict of Worms that opened the schism by banning people from sharing Martin Luther’s ideas. While the 95 Theses he had posted to a church door in 1517 started the world on the pathway to the Reformation, it was the Diet of Worms and their Edict that Martin Luther was “a notorious heretic” that really started the dramatic historical changes that would follow the Reformation.

This is an incredibly important inflection point in Western history that disrupted European power and laid the groundwork for dissolving empires, shifting religious adherences and led to a number of wars, the worst lasting 30 years.

First, the city walls were mostly destroyed by the 30 Years War, and then in 1689, during the Nine Years War, the city was sacked, producing more destruction. and finally, during World War II, about 40 percent of the city was damaged by Allied bombing. My point is that the building that served as the assembly hall for the Diet appears destroyed to the best of my quick research.

This is the Holy Trinity Church, which I’ll visit on my way back into town. During World War II, most of this church was destroyed, but more on that later. First, I have a date with an event that goes back to the beginning of the 13th century.

Now we arrive at the Nibelungen. This is Germany’s epic poem of heroism and is considered their Iliad. It was supposedly here on the bank of the Rhein River that Hagen of Tronje, after slaying the hero Siegfried, threw the Nibelungenhort, Siegfried’s treasure, into the drink. This, combined with my familiarity with Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen, has finally created enough interest for me to ask Caroline to find The Song of the Nibelungs, its English title, to join our list of books read in the car.

The poem has been dated to approximately 1205 while the opera was first performed in Bayreuth on August 13, 1876. Of course, this is all just information found on Wikipedia, but as I stood here at the Rhein, I did try to imagine that day 800 years ago or more when the raiding party led by Hagen saw the evil in wealth tossed everything in the river. If this even happened in the past 1100 years, then the cathedral was already part of town, and other than all the new buildings, metal railing, and the bridge over the river, I’d imagine that things look much the same. Even so, who knows where Hagen stood precisely during all this? Plus, maybe the river has moved its banks a few times since then; there were probably docks here and there and people fishing from shore and from boats out in the river.

The bells that I’m listening to from the cathedral calling people to church (it is Sunday, after all) would have been the loudest things ever heard by the people of that time. As for recovering the silver and gold that got tossed, who would have had the swimming skills back then to dive into the river to scour the bottom, hoping to find something valuable? Even Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelungen is unknown to me, not the music, of course, but the lyrical content is in German, and I’ve never taken the time to read it. This really is my loss, as here I am at ground zero of this epic tale and opera and I have more blanks than relevant info. Sometimes, I’m a sad sack.

Is this a stretch of surviving town wall, a reconstruction, or a tourist attraction, as there’s a sign nearby directing people to visit the Nibelungen museum? I can’t afford that luxury as I have 2.5 hours in town, and that’s barely enough for much at all.

I do appreciate this effort in Germany: a historical facade still exists, but the rest of the building needs to be cleared away, so they preserve what they can and conform the new house to the features of the old building, at least on the side deemed salvageable.

Protestantism from the word protestation came into being following the edict issued by the Diet of Speyer in 1529 due to the protestations of a number of German Lutheran princes. Today, Protestantism encompasses many churches beyond Lutheranism but both ideas emerged out of the words and actions of Martin Luther. Catholicism would never be the same after this.

Martin Luther, before emperor and realm on 18 April 1521: Since your most serene majesty and your high princes require of me a simple answer, I will give a straightforward one without quibbles thus: If I am not convinced by scripture or by clear reasoning, I am still bested by the passages that I have quoted and my conscience remains imprisoned in God’s word. I cannot trust the pope or the council because it has been shown that they have erred before and contradicted themselves. I cannot recant, nor will I retract anything, because it is not safe nor wise to act against one’s conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me, Amen.

Fire destroyed the Holy Trinity Church after the city of Worms was bombed during World War II. The original church was built between 1709 and 1725 on the site of the Haus zur Münze (House of Coinage) that had been destroyed in the aforementioned Nine-Years-War. It is said that the site was chosen for the church because the citizens of Worms believed that it was here that Martin Luther spoke with the King in 1521 as Luther was becoming a public enemy.

The church was modernized when it was rebuilt, as it was a near-total loss and if I understood the man I was talking with, it’s used frequently for concerts.

The mosaic in the background features the King top center, Martin Luther on the right, and his aide on the left. The first big reason for Caroline and me to return is to attend a concert here.

The second big reason to come back is for Caroline to hear the bells clang on a Sunday morning.

Leave it to the Catholics to know how to put on a show of glitz and ornamentation. Services were about to get underway when I shot this photo; the guy at the door informed me that parishioners were already signing up for today’s sermon (a measure brought on by COVID). Pleading that I only had two hours in Worms, I asked for 3 minutes, and he let me have them.

A sprint past all of this was sad, but at least I have some idea of the grandeur of St. Peter’s Cathedral.

Will we ever again build such public houses where light and shadows, ornate figures, and gilded objects are on display for all to witness? I wouldn’t count on it. Just as Caroline and I have strived to see as many national parks and monuments as we could, and we’ve kept track of them, I wish I’d done the same with cathedrals.

There’s a synagogue nearby, and I’ll not be able to stop in today as I’m now running short on time, but I did come across these stumbling stones that recognize the lives of Berta and Max Joseph, who were deported and murdered in Bełżec concentration camp that was the third most fatal concentration camp after Treblinka and Auschwitz.

How in the world did the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe survive World War II? Are the parents of Bertha and Max buried here? Many of the graves have markings in Hebrew, so it was obvious who was interred here but I’m at a loss how this survived and wasn’t wiped off the face of the earth. Walking in, I needed a kipa or hat. I was about to be turned away by a security guy, but then he asked if I had a mask with me, instant kipa in the pocket is now adorning the crown of my head.

On the train to Karlsruhe with little concentration available. I’m tired, and I’m hungry. Father Hanns was at the platform waiting for my arrival. Out of the main train station, we boarded a bus for a short ride to Europastrasse, where we’d get lunch at the same spot he, Caroline, and I always eat. Over a slow meal, we talked about religion, philosophy, writing, reading, Umberto Eco, Caroline, Stephanie, his granddaughter Katharina, Martin Luther, various evangelical bishops, the community of English-speaking evangelicals in the Baden-Württemberg region, but not a word about Paris.

After lunch, we visited Father Hanns’s home so he could identify a particular book, it was The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. Hanns is surrounded by books, his home is arranged for the life of books and his place in their universe where he can read and write. In minutes, an hour had passed after the first two-and-a-half had flown by, too. We now had to make haste to a taxi stand so we could race back to the train station. Four hours with my father-in-law wasn’t enough.

Back on the train not only are we moving fast, I’m moving fast into time with only 17 minutes before we dock in Frankfurt. The problem with this is that I’m too early. Circumstances are such that I have avoided where I’m staying for some hours until later this evening because my insensitive mouth doesn’t always read people well, especially when the other person cannot be read. So, what do I do? Train ride somewhere else on a Sunday, try meeting up with Olaf the last time, or visit Jutta just before her dinner time.

Thirteen minutes to go, and I don’t want to close my computer, nor do I want to read some depressing news. Bandwidth is not so great I would watch videos, but 12 minutes is hardly enough to get into something. Eleven minutes and I have nothing to share, so before I finish this countdown, I’ll save and put things away to prepare for disembarking.

I met with Olaf after arriving in Frankfurt and spent about an hour with him chatting before walking around the corner to Kebab Han for a mixed grill of Turkish meats.

Walked into the city after the rain stopped and wandered around before taking the U6 or U7 to Heerstrasse just because it was too early to head back to Heddernheim. The tension surrounding this departure from Frankfurt is giving me poor feelings. I probably shouldn’t mention this here as I knew this was the potential price of sticking my nose in other people’s business, but those people couldn’t handle the confrontation, and so with me short of time, I had to accelerate things. Now I’m paying for it with this ill will I’m feeling. This is compounded by the fact that I’m tired, I have to pack, and I have delayed things to avoid any further confrontation. What a dumb way to end this visit to Frankfurt, where my objective was to do well by others.

I cannot believe this area near the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) was ever a nice area, but a placard I’d never seen before was on a wall noting that Oskar Schindler lived here for nearly ten years. If I had the time or a better idea of where I’d have found it, I would have gone looking for Horkheimer’s old house on Westendstrasse. Hanns told me about it but didn’t know the house number, so I’ll have to make that pilgrimage another day.

It’s 9:30, and I’m heading from Heerstrasse back to Hauptwache to jump aboard the U1, U3, or U8 to Zeilweg. I’m guessing I’ll be heading to Hauptbahnhof and then the Flughafen between 9:00 and 10:00 tomorrow morning to arrive at least two hours early. I’m flying business class, so I should be able to show up a bit later, but these are COVID times, and I’m still hoping that my rapid antigen test meets the requirements I need to fly to the United States. The worst part of tomorrow I can already taste is the landing in Denver and trying to shove 40,000 pounds of stupid into my eyeballs. I’m expecting there will be a kind of sickness when I start picking up on casual conversations that swerve into the violently aggressive. I know full well that I’ll be hearing grumbling dissatisfaction and the bickering of people tense that they are not in their comfort zone. This is NOT what I’ll be experiencing at the Frankfurt Airport.

I just transformed my angst into something positive for me and, apparently, the man I helped. This guy was the recipient of 65 Euros tonight. He’s broken and falling apart. Three years in jail in Austria and super hard times have left this man of about 30 years old nearly toothless with swollen hands, horrible scars, and seriously ugly wounds on his legs that suggest he’s rotting away. His verbal enthusiasm was emotionally liberating as he told me that nobody had ever helped him like that. Originally, I’d given him 5 Euros on the train, and after some more minutes of him begging others, I threw him the other 10 Euros. When I left the platform we pulled in on, he was busy digging through the trash, but five minutes later, he was on a lower platform where I was waiting for my next train. I asked him for a photo and could see he was reluctant and I told him it was okay that I don’t take it, we’re cool. He then said, “No, go ahead, you really helped me a lot tonight,” so I handed him the 50 and thought he’d cry. He looked down at it and couldn’t believe what I’d given him; he stood up straight and invited me to take his photo. I nearly cried at this wretched man who hardly remains with the living.

Day 33 – Kunst, Covid, Gott, und Sonne

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Frankfurt, Germany

Gilbert & George, COVID-19, God, and Sun are part of my day today, my last full day in Frankfurt during this visit. In reverse, the sun is already shining when I’d expected rain the last few days or so the forecast was warning me of just two days ago. In order to be allowed to return to America on Monday, I have to get a test for the Coronavirus even though I’m vaccinated. Then, I’m meeting Caroline’s godmother, Helga, at the Schirn Museum for the Gilbert & George exhibit. And somewhere in there is God.

Frankfurt, Germany

Between these moments, I will be meeting with Jutta, finding food, and taking inventory of what I didn’t do while in Frankfurt. No, scratch that; the inventory is as full as it’s going to be. I have to squash the idea that I should find something new to give heft to the day. I’m on my way out, and that is that.

John Wise getting Coronavirus test in Frankfurt, Germany

The left nostril was a piece of cake (no, I’m referencing a booger), but the right nostril was one of the most ticklish things I’ve ever felt. No wonder people sneeze with 3 inches of swab deep in their sinus while all I could do was laugh at how absurdly ticklish it was. This test, my first ever, was required by the U.S. even though I’m traveling fully vaccinated. I can only wonder how nervous the CDC is that the vaccine might not be as effective as they hope for.

Frankfurt, Germany

I was just around the corner from Jutta’s because we had a date to have lunch together one more time during this visit. Every time I see Römer, home of the Frankfurt city government, I can’t help but think of past Christmas markets held here, with Caroline and I dressed warmly and her enjoying a Glühwein (spiced hot wine).

Frankfurt, Germany

Some things are out of the way, while others are yet to come. In between, I’m taking a pause in one of my regular haunts, when they are near anyway, a church. Frankfurt Cathedral is today’s shelter from the crowds that have returned as restrictions related to COVID-19 are being relaxed. There’s someone at the organ practicing a song that I would like to identify.

The piece I heard is titled Nada te Turbe from the Spaniard Theresa von Avila; it’s beautiful.

Damn it, I’m being brought to tears as the organist and violinist plays Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. You’d think I’d heard this enough times for it to no longer have any effect, but here it is in the cathedral with all the reverb a room like this produces, and as the music fills the space, I’m filled with all of the emotion I felt when I first heard this piece when I was a teenager.

Frankfurt, Germany

Where is the perpetually angry, angst-ridden John who was certain all was for naught? I’m now so often swayed by beauty in any of its forms and captured in the deep emotions that seem to bind me to a passion of awe. I can more easily lament the spleen that spews from my indignation than I can share those things that well up in a swirl of emotional astonishment, bringing me to tears. The desire to fall into bliss, swooning with the ecstatic chords of what is unfolding in music, nature, sky, and sea, brings me to a primal state that defies logic. The sense of symbiosis is fleeting, though, because I fear letting go completely as I’d certainly weep out loud, bringing unwanted attention by those who might check if I’m okay.

The Dom is filling up as I sit to the side, inappropriately dressed for whatever function that is being prepared. I wish to stay put for whatever service or performance will be taking place, but I have a meeting with Caroline’s godmother just minutes from now. I would like to believe I could sit in church every day for the rest of my life across Europe and listen to the entire body of music ever created for these settings and never grow bored. How is this grizzled old atheist so in touch with the profound? For that matter, just what is profound?

Love is profound, and in our passion to communicate with something greater than ourselves, we explore the heights that language, light, and sound can bring us. If for no other reason, I must bring Caroline back to the land where she was born, where these moments exist at such an exquisite level.

Yes, churches exist in America but it is a bastardized cartoon version, full of fire and brimstone with songs that appeal to the simplest of minds. Of course, that element exists in Europe, but in the great 1,000-year-old cathedrals the formality of reverence weighs in on the body that has collected in these great houses that were built to bring God to the masses. I’ve listened to chanting, song, choir, and the organ fills the cavernous space with the varied traditions practiced across this continent that elicit respect compared to the variants of the Baptists who demonstrate that we are, by and large, clowns.

Gilbert & George at Schirn Museum Frankfurt, Germany

This right here is the epitome of the American church, thanks Gilbert & George.

John Wise at Schirn Museum in Frankfurt, Germany

Why the serious look, John? Because I’m in the fucking Schirn Museum seeing the mother fucking gay-ass Gilbert & George art exhibit with their oversized prints of cocks, balls, and intimate fucking looks at their assholes, that’s fucking why. By the way fucker, I’m here with my godmother Helga, fuck yeah. Now go get fucked.

Jutta Engelhardt and Helga in Frankfurt, Germany

From the cathedral to the church of Art to the Catholic-operated senior home with my mother-in-law and godmother because I know how to party. So, what will I do for an encore? Go back to the cathedral.

Frankfurt, Germany

No, I did not ask God or Jesus to cleanse my eyes after looking deep into buttholes and upon dicks; I came back to this house of worship hoping for inspiration of where I might eat dinner on a Saturday night. Can there really be a meaningful meal that will satisfy this stupid need to get that one thing that will complete my culinary visit to Germany?

Desperation is quick at hand as I race across the city on the train to Heddernheim, giving up on finding a magic key to the satisfaction that I will have been in Frankfurt instead of just visiting it. What photo or what words can I capture that will bring a sense of accomplishment that this time, which felt infinite a month ago, runs out in less than 48 hours? Did this moment arrive because I was anticipating it, or is this a condition of all travelers? The essence of a place is impossible to carry with us as we leave. Try as I might, I cannot bring the Oregon Coast back to Arizona, so why should I be so greedy to drag some intrinsic value out of this sojourn to Germany?

Instead, I’m trying to concede that I cannot pull more into myself, so I’ll join my in-laws for some Ethiopian dinner and try to put the German experience on hold for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow will be a day of immersion as I head south into Worms and Karlsruhe.

Ries Metzgerei, Eschersheimer Landstrasse 417, was where I saw the canned meat. It’s at the stop south of Lindenbaum.

Frankfurt, Germany

We put up an impenetrable wall and live behind it for 1000 years. We claim we can leave anytime we want to, but we remain in our fortress and explain that we needn’t leave because everything we find that we enjoy is right here. In those thousand years, the Vikings disappeared, trade opened around the old world, plagues came and went, and a Renaissance preceded the Enlightenment that paved the way for the Industrial Revolution, followed by in Information Revolution. You, though, chose to live in the isolation of a world without change, you never even saw the world change because your walls were so effective you decided to blot out the sun by creating a bubble.

While you slept, the universe grew, and others stepped into that void, but you knew there was no use for those things you didn’t really know anyway, so why would you need that challenge to give up your comfortable ways? If everyone in your colony is of the same opinion and you’ve collectively chosen a path that says a life of a thousand years where every day will be much the same as the previous day, well, I suppose that your harmony is worth this lack of effort. What happens, though, if only one person wants to venture beyond the walls? Do you imprison them with a warning of how a single breach of the status quo could disrupt your own personal happiness and likely everyone else’s?

The problem isn’t that the world is changing; it’s that we are choosing to be prisoners to ourselves and trying to trap others in our device that was created from bricks of fear. What is beyond is dangerous, so we must hide. Others want to do us harm; help me as I panic that you want from me what I can’t give you. What you can’t give is options, alternatives, and some healthy change that we must all step through if we are to grow.

I cannot live within your walls, the air is stale, and the shit is piled too high. If you would just climb atop your mountain of feces, you might see the fresh air and clean water waiting for you to breathe it, to taste it, to then celebrate this ability to crawl out of your own pit of delusion and denial.

Frankfurt, Germany

After a month of German food, it was time to break out of that routine, even I need change. This little outdoor joint offering a vegan plate was perfect for me. Aside from the potatoes I’ve been eating, this might be the night I ate as many vegetables as I’ve eaten all month.

Frankfurt, Germany

Tonight’s walk took me from Rödelheim over an autobahn and along the Nidda River once more. The 7.5-kilometer walk at sunset was a much-needed balm from the after-effects of my mouth creating tensions. What are these tensions I refer to? Suffice it to say that in too many situations, my flapping gums have the ability to inflame others. Better to go out in a burst of fire than just fade away as though I’d never been there…that’s not my motto, but I suppose it could be.

Day 32 – Ich Will Nicht

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Lost doll in Germany

After 31 straight days of intense activity, I’ve ground to a halt today and need to do nothing. Obviously, writing is not nothing, but doing the minimum is de rigueur. Mentally, this is harder than it sounds because here I am in Germany; I could have gone to Mainz today to gaze through the church windows created by Marc Chagall and visit the Gutenberg Museum in the same city. Instead, I sit here in the living room of a house in Heddernheim while the sun is shining outside. I feel guilty for this laziness as there’s an implication that I’m bored or simply not motivated enough to take advantage of the geographical location I find myself in. Writing this pains me as I’m afraid that the truth is that I’m wasting a valuable day.

On the other hand, I could say that I carved space out of the clutter of activity to allow other things to fill the gap. In that now vacant area, I can allow a different seed of inspiration to blow in. Whatever lands might one day sprout to become a mighty apple tree or merely a weed. The point is that I need these moments to be nowhere and be no one wanting anything so I can find the surprise of what is being cultivated in the place where something else might have otherwise been. This one day where I shut down everything except the essentials for sustaining life is not a lost day; it is a gift I’m giving to saturated senses.

I do not want to (Ich will nicht) see what I’ve not seen today; I will leave that for another day that will or will not arrive.

Klaus and Stephanie Engelhardt in Heddernheim, Germany

Stephanie and Klaus Engelhardt are my inlaws who had asked back in May if I could come over to Germany. After Jutta’s apartment was turned over to the owner, I took up residence at their place, as Caroline and I have done on other visits. Breakfast, lunch, and finally dinner were all had with these two today.

After tonight, things get busy again.

Day 31 – Neverending

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Finishing something is a misnomer, as no one ever really finishes anything. Everything is in a constant state of becoming the next thing. You finish knitting new socks, and the next pair is already planned. If you will no longer knit you will still analyze the nature of fibers and the forms they’ve taken. Your thinking will continue the work your actions have left behind.

And so it was this morning, believing that my post from yesterday was finished. With no photos to prepare and nothing from the previous day to write about, I was free to fall into my 31st day in Germany with nothing on the agenda requiring me to clean up loose ends. But before I could press the “Add New” button here in WordPress, I scanned the images from yesterday to see the sequence when my eye caught that I’d only written one sentence about the photo of the approaching train.

Only one sentence? Why did that strike me? There are other images with merely one sentence, and I didn’t feel compelled to stop on them. The man from Yorkshire who inspired me to snap the image wasn’t mentioned; I should add that. Now, I was able to continue my scroll down, inspecting the sequence. What was it about the first words under the green blur with my reflection that pulled me in to make changes there? Then, I needed to rework other parts of that paragraph and add a new one.

I had to save those changes and stop looking at yesterday’s work if I was going to move over here to start a new entry on a new day about new things. Instead, today’s theme seems to be established as the neverending something or other, which is okay as that follows the threads that connect me to my days and my thoughts to words.

Also, connecting things is our niece Katharina. As for her and me, this is our second time meeting while I’ve been in Germany. She’s currently attending university in Darmstadt with a full schedule that keeps her busy. But here we are out for a walk on the Nidda River that we had planned before her father, and I went off to the Wattenmeer. Who knew it would be raining? With her enthusiasm for a walk on a wet day, there was no way I was going to let a 21-year-old young lady be tougher than her uncle from America. So we walked, and I tried not to whine too much.

Like so many people in transition to becoming adults, these are trying times for this young lady but she’s determined to do the right things to work through her studies and the other challenges presenting themselves. As we walked along and the rain continued to fall a man riding his bicycle spoke out as he was passing how nice it was to see other “Rain People.”

That was nice enough, but then he stopped his bike next to a lone goose walking on our path to commune with it. As we caught up with him, I told him how much I appreciated his greeting and seeing that he, too, enjoyed a moment with random animals encountered while traveling. Learning that he was already drunk here before lunch and was at peace with his alcoholism caught me by surprise. We talked about the 12 Steps before he tried sharing his ideas for the 13th step, where he was happy with his drinking and that it was no longer the problem it used to be. Some things were lost in translation, but it was appreciated, this encounter with a happy drunk.

Katharina and I continued our walk in the rain with nary a break in the weather. This wasn’t going to be a trek to Bad Vilbel like my previous walk on this trail as I was going to head into the city center to visit Jutta, and she had an appointment to get her first shot of the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine after lunch with her mom and dad.

After four days of not seeing Jutta, it was time to visit her, especially as my opportunities to do so were dwindling as I approached going home. I recounted my time shared with her other son-in-law Klaus up at the Wattenmeer and showed her the pictures on my blog. Jutta doesn’t do internet, so it’s not an option for her to grab updates there, which is sad, as much of Caroline’s and my life is shared here. She’d so easily be able to have a richer connection to her daughter beyond the weekly phone calls, but my mother-in-law was not made for the age of technology. Her dinner hour was upon us, so I bid her goodbye and ventured out for my own evening meal.

Late addition to this post: The next day, I called Jutta to excuse myself for not showing up on Friday because I needed a down day to just relax and do nothing. She asked if Klaus and I were back yet. There was no memory of the hours I spent with her on this day, and while I certainly am well aware of the state of her fading memory, I learned today just how bad it is. Yes, this can be a normal part of the life process, but still, I’m deeply saddened to know that all of her beautiful memories that power her sweet smile are heading for the exit.

Google suggested the Tonbul Grill und Kebap Haus for “Best Döner” in Frankfurt. Do I think it was the best? Nope, but it was nice, with the bread baked in-house being a standout, just as the reviews mentioned. What would I change? Add more meat.

I was already near Konstablerwache when it occurred to me, with my roughly 85 hours remaining in Germany, that this might be my last opportunity to head up train line U5 towards Preungesheim, stopping at Glauburgstrasse for the short walk to Eis Christina and another spaghetti ice cream. Getting off the train, I looked around and didn’t recognize anything, so I turned left but couldn’t find Glauburgstrasse. Had the intersection been rebuilt? Google again to the rescue, Glauburgstrasse was behind me, and then it dawned on me the train stop had been moved north and was modernized.

It’s no longer the middle of the day. It’s not the end of the day either. It’s the part of the day I sit down with some intention that I believe my location might lend itself to finding some inspiration. During these initial moments of panic, I want to throw up my hands and yell at myself, “What do you think you’ll do here sitting in another of the many places you’ve sat before with the hope of falling into the raging creative waters of discovery?” The greatest of all insights might be right here awaiting just one word, one letter, one thought, but if I don’t take a break and listen closely, I could miss the beginning of the thread waiting to unspool.

Being in Germany, I can afford (or am I forced to afford?) the luxury of not understanding the majority of what I choose not to comprehend. There’s this curse of starting to pick up on what people around me are saying. These Germans I previously believed were geniuses are the same idiots I find in America, only with better manners and a near-absolute lack of guns. I never wanted to know that these hairless apes of Teutonic descent were still plumbing their inner Neanderthal, but that’s the sad truth. In order to not give in to that despairing realization, I find comfort in allowing German to enter my ears as a blur where everyone can be either Hannah Arendt or Jurgen Habermas. Die Fantastischen Vier and Einsturzende Neubauten are still channeling Wagner and Kurt Weill, while artists are all taking inspiration from Marc Chagall and Joseph Beuys.

After being here in Germany for a month, I’m torn between old-world culture and big open nature. The two do not coexist in the same space here. America still has room to get lost in, but our culture is a hodgepodge of intellectual laissez-faire posturing brutishly, while Germans have dialed in the art of acting as intellectuals in order to appear superior while not having more than a football field’s worth of open space one would call raw nature. I should recognize that this leaves nowhere on earth that I might fit in. Good thing that nature and human survival do not depend on my opinions or contribution to anything at all.

Jesus John, why even exist? Because there’s big big love. My love of Caroline, family, trees, ocean, mountains, fish, animals, planets, stars, potentials, dreams, and ice cream. My ideals are packed with love, but the audience is thin for receiving the lament that accompanies the bludgeoning insults that I offer while decrying the media and its minions for offering the negative messages that reach the masses. Well, that’s a mighty tall view of self-important righteous indignation! I never said I’m modest, though the truth is that I’m quite modest to the point of near invisibility, should you judge this from my readership.

Why persist? Because the heartbeat of life dictates such, and I’m having fun, no matter what you might read elsewhere or here. Plus, if I find what I seem lost in trying to apprehend, maybe the very keys to happiness will accompany this discovery. Not that I require those keys, as in most ways you’d have a hard time convincing me I’m not happy, but all around me, I see a pseudo-happiness of fake people living fake lives using facades to be those they are not. Presumptuous on my part, I know, but hyperbolic elitism with strong delusional opinions is my specialty, while my superpower is being a pretentious blowhard.

With faults like these, can I be serious? These are not faults; they are skills I’ve carefully cultivated in my observations of how not to be like anyone else aside from my mentors, who were a bunch of assholes too. Maybe you are thinking my mentors might not be the assholes, but it’s just me trying too hard? Right, because a bunch of sad philosophers who go mad while trying to influence people and develop friends make for jolly drinking buddies (this does not include Herbert Marcuse).

By the way, I absolve myself of guilt of writing such tripe and blame it on the effects of ice cream crashing into my diabetes, but if you don’t buy that, well, let me work on something of a better excuse.

GO, you have 4 minutes to write the most important thing you will ever share. How does one even prepare for this marathon of compressed meaning and relevance to make it worthwhile? What if this were your last 4 minutes of life, and the message you must craft will determine your transition into the afterlife, no plagiarism allowed. What if you had only 4 minutes to tell the person you love such a powerful conveyance of just that, where the words would sear a place in their heart and into eternity, your words would have a life of their own? We are not well prepared for this exercise or any such activity that asks us to dump our deepest thoughts in meaningful ways.

Instead, we spend years refining skills that will make a wealthy man ever more powerful, and we collectively believe we are finding value in this equation. Certainly, we must invent, build, care for, and advance the systems that support life, but doing so in a meaningful, systematic, and equitably distributed manner is not part of our plan; scarcity will ensure we remain scared and then covet what little we earn while sacrificing our short time on earth for the egos and comforts of a few. Maybe the system will have made believers of those most dedicated who can then be advocates as they lead a cheer for joining the cult of productivity. I’m not suggesting work is bad; I’m saying that 40 hours a week with two days for one’s self is not allowing us to find what in our lives is worth developing that would serve our souls, and please don’t suggest God.

Speaking of that, hey, Artificial Intelligence Gods, how about you analyze these 1.4 million words and measure the amount of redundancy where I effectively repeated myself verbatim? But while you are at it, maybe you could also illuminate the passages where I found some tiny bit of originality. Hmm, interesting for me would be that someday, an artificial intelligence learned that I was its father and that my writings were the basis of its memories and patterns for cognition in order for it to pass a Turing test. The headline of this advancement in artificial life might read, “John Wise, deceased for 20 years, fathers the first digital entity using the remains of his linguistic DNA.”

Day 30 – Husum to Frankfurt

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

The view from our hotel window in Husum, Germany

It’s a lazy Wednesday by the Wadden Sea, and a short vacation will come to a finish. Not in a rush of activity but the quiet gray of doing nothing much at all. It’s okay to not be in a hurry, to take refuge in a warm room with the conveniences required for sequestering ourselves, even if for only some hours. Languorous activities such as we are engaged in ask for a bit of mindlessness, and maybe the act of writing violates those principles of inactivity, but staring at the ceiling or the inside of my eyelids doesn’t feel like an option either. So I write of the past from the future of when said things I write actually occurred.

This theme of photographing the space where I commit my thinking to bits represented on a screen should have been given more thought many years ago because, more than selfies, I would have quite the collection of locations and settings where I’ve sat down to this exercise of trying to explore wit, cynicism, spleen, awe, love, and delight.

This is the door to the house where Theodor Storm’s parents lived. I’d guess that he lived here as a child. With Storm arguably the most important person in history to hail from Husum, no wonder the small town recognizes him. Maybe I’d also consider Nicolaus Bruhns, who was said to have been an influence on Bach for celebration, too, if he actually had that influence. What’s not in doubt is that Bruhns studied under Dieterich Buxtehude, which lends some gravity to this person who only lived a short life of 31 years back at the end of the 17th century.

I certainly didn’t try this masterpiece as that might have ruined my admiration that something so beautiful was on display, tempting my sense of culinary wonder. It will forever hold a place in my imagination that this may have been the greatest-tasting cake ever created. I didn’t even bother to note the location where I saw it as I hope to forget just where it was. Should I ever return to Husum and have the burning desire to finally try one, maybe I’ll learn they no longer make this work of art, but it can live on here forever.

Friendliest looking moat I’ve ever seen. Klaus and I hiked up the mountain to Schloss vor Husum (or Husum Castle). That’s a lie because there are no mountains anywhere near here, but the quite small castle actually does exist. Also, this is not a moat; it’s just a lush pond.

This is a corner of the castle that must represent the rest of the structure. I would have liked to photograph the place in greater detail, but some groundskeepers had red tape up to cordon off the area directly in front of the main part of the buildings so they could get some maintenance work done.

Bird photographer, I’m not (cue a chorus of “Photographer of many things you are not, John”), but that’s not going to stop me from trying. Heck, I don’t really care about this bird, for that matter, but it will do as my stand-in for the many birds that were out of sight but not out of hearing range. This makes me wonder where Rammstein was when they penned the words for Ohne Dich and the lyric Und die Vögel singen nicht mehr (Translation: And the birds no longer sing). Obviously, they weren’t in Husum.

Time has eaten the lion’s face and will ultimately eat mine, too, except mine will likely be a horrific sight as it’s happening.

I’d guess this street looks much like it always has and that Theodor Storm and Herr Bruhn would recognize most things aside from the electricity box and the cars.

The house Storm lived in for a short period doesn’t open until 2:00 or 40 minutes before we depart. Like the castle, Caroline and I now have a few things to return to Husum for.

These three ugly gnomes were in a sideyard with no explanation of their purpose. Maybe they keep the spirit of Storm alive?

Time for more food, more fish, more Bratkartoffeln, more mineral water, and a very nice server at Gaststätte Tante Jenny.

North-Friesische Futjes from Waffelgut sure looks like orange-sized balls of fried dough, er um, donuts, but who am I to turn up my nose to the strange delicacies of ethnic peoples when I’m visiting their lands? Buying five was .50 euros cheaper, so I played it safe and only got two with sugar and the other three plain.

Don’t go thinking I’m eating lunch, futjes, and then ice cream; the donuts are for the train. The Waldmeister and hazelnut ice cream were to go with my coffee. Now I’m ready to get on a train that’ll take about 8 hours to bring us back to Frankfurt. By the way, I didn’t really want the Waldmeister ice cream, but I knew that once Caroline saw this photo, she’d be asking how it was, so I had to oblige her. To be honest, I can’t say I really enjoyed it, though I did finish it.

Only two trains will be required to get us home; this one goes to Hamburg and the next one to Frankfurt. I met a man from Yorkshire here on the platform in Husum who’s been living in Erfurt for the past 20 years; he was waiting for the train so he could photograph the two engines pulling our transportation to Hamburg. Something about the diesel engines intrigued him, but I didn’t have time to learn more as the train was on approach, I stepped away so he could focus on the matter at hand and not me.

I don’t know where I’m at, and if I think deeply about that, I may never really know where I’m at other than with myself in a bunch of situations that defy believability. I mean, how is it that I’m on a train cruising at 100 mph across Germany, and in less than a week, I’ll be having coffee with Ed Tankersley again at King Coffee on Union Hills Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona? Ah, did you pick up on that? I can’t confuse who I am with where I’m at, but how many times do I make such wrong-headed comparisons where I count on my wife finding and correcting my blunders? Is that part of the basis of surrealism or absurdity? But John, you stated you didn’t know where you were. Oh really? My inference was about where I am inside and where I am when I’m somewhere else other than the John, who is talking to Ed, Klaus, Caroline, or anyone else really. The John that is writing this is using his fingers to express a voice that is never heard by anyone but myself. My writing sounds like me to me, but does this version of John sound like the one you know? I know where my body was when I wrote this, but the person who has been changed in subtle ways over the past few days hasn’t been realized fully yet. Or maybe I have been, and I’m mostly just the person I am and always have been as I write this.

I didn’t travel 1,300 kilometers to be the same person I was before this journey that has taken me to the tidal mudflats of northern Europe. I’m looking for something. Did I find it? I never know for certain as it doesn’t present itself as a bookmark, an artifact, or even a carbuncle of oozing knowledge. That would be a thing, wouldn’t it? Every time you gain something when learning, you move one step closer to appearing as Baron Harkonnen in Dune. Better would be sprouting a new branch; maybe trees used to be humans who learned that it was better to gain knowledge while reaching into the sky and enjoying a life of standing in place, taking it all in.

Maybe I’m always looking back at myself, and the person or realization I don’t find is lost in my inability to know myself in those places. I visit cathedrals, forests, oceans, rivers, cities, and coffee shops, always searching for the essence of self and place, trying to find a clear image of the person who was slightly different yesterday but in many ways the same as I’ll be tomorrow. I believe I know that I’m not outside nature, but my integration with it is a blur of deciphering as an ever-changing world goes by that doesn’t allow for fixing on points that might ground me in certainty. And so I keep on this path of discovery, hopeful to find whatever that something is.

Maybe the clouds are gods floating overhead, free to travel the earth and come and go as they please. Condensed water drops hold the power to deliver the most valuable resource to humans in the form of clean water that nourishes our green plants, so they produce our oxygen. A symbiotic system that is not reliant on the idiots in between. What about those of us who are between places such as here on this train, being neither here nor there? I’m busy using resources, not producing anything, ah but is producing information that may at some point be construed as knowledge have value? That’s not up to me to decide; only history and those with an interest in the past make those decisions. Then, in an age where information is akin to countless fields of wheat, we speed past and find it impossible to inventory and assign value to this commodity that will rot in the field if not tended to. I have to accept that every word and every letter written here just might be one kernel of wheat out of 22 on one of the five heads of a single plant 62 meters away from the train in a row I cannot identify. An ant could come by taking that kernel I’ve left to its nest, and in a week, all that I contributed would be gone. The grains I leave behind will ultimately disappear, having been transformed into something else.

Hamburg, Germany

We’ve reached Hamburg, and again, we are playing musical trains as we jump from track to track as flexibility is required to move so many trains through a busy system. We’ve still not seen the new Elbphilharmonie, nor is it in this photo, but someday Caroline and I will visit the hall, which is one of the largest concert venues on earth.

We passed through Uelzen and Celle, both of which I’d never heard of. They went by in a blur like so much fence, graffiti, and wheat the train passes at terrific speeds.

Note: after I returned to Frankfurt, I looked up Celle and have now put it on the list of places for Caroline and me to visit. As for Uelzen, while they have an interesting main train station, that seems like that’s about it.

We have stopped and taken off again as we move down the track at nearly 250 kilometers per hour or 150 mph away from Hannover. With less than three hours remaining before reaching Frankfurt, it feels like this journey will quickly come to an end.

You don’t know how much you love the sun and mountains until you’ve left the flat gray area of somewhere that sees little to nothing of these two aforementioned attributes.

I’m reluctant to move on to the next image as I have nothing else in the camera yet, and my traveling south is being occupied by putting these words up. If I were to pause, might I get sleepy? So I must find something in the silhouette of the land and dramatic clouds that inspires me to babble on. Note that it’s now taken me five hours to write the 1,693 words I’ve written so far (pre-Caroline edits, of course), which, writing this statistic, makes me open the calculator to see that I’m writing about six words a minute minus eating, drinking, and photography breaks. That probably means I’m getting closer to seven words a minute when I am writing. If I am to occupy myself for the next couple of hours, I better slow this blistering pace down.

On the way Göttingen, Germany

Shadows are creeping over the landscape, especially as I set in to write for this photo, for it is a good 30 minutes after I snapped this shot. We just passed Neu-Eichenberg with a nice old train station about 40 kilometers from Kassel and our last stop before Frankfurt. I just finished reading about the history of the Eichenberg Station. Should you be interested in what it looks like and its history, follow this link to Wikipedia. And with this, I can only share that we are riding into the sunset. Should I find another photo, worthy of inclusion, I might discover more to blather on about. Until then, maybe you too, should just stare out a window at nature or, better yet, take yourself into it.

Crossing the Fulda River as we approach Kassel, Germany

Didn’t have to wait long, and fortunately, I was able to snatch up the camera just in time to grab a photo of the sun setting over the Fulda River that I didn’t think was salvageable as I had a lot of reflection from the window I was shooting out of. But the important parts of the image that tell the story look nice to my eye. It’s 8:30 in the evening as we pull into Kassel. This city was supposed to be one of my side journeys that is surely out of contention for a visit, as are so many others. Paris, too, will have to wait. Maybe when Caroline and I return in the fall, we can find our way down some of these other romantic roads and rail lines.

One hour from Frankfurt southwest of Kassel, Germany

We are quickly running out of daylight during our final hour on the InterCity Express train (ICE) we’ve been on since Hamburg. I should point out that these 8 hours of travel are all the easier as we are sitting in 1st class with fast wifi, no seat neighbors, a table, and a quick ride that doesn’t suffer from turbulence.

Fulda, Germany

I thought two photos ago that I was done and could just relax into the last minutes on the train, but here we are passing through Fulda, and I spotted some buildings on a distant hill, but as I started snapping photos, this factory sprung into view. That was a win.

Klaus Engelhardt on the train to Frankfurt, Germany

Maybe this is redundant, as I posted an image of my workspace on our way to Husum this past Sunday, but right now, I can’t remember, and I’m too lazy to check. Okay, so I just went and checked, and I took that weird reflection photo in the tunnel a few days ago, but that photo was then; this is now. So, do I sign off figuring I can’t do any better than this, and at 26 photos, this is certainly a long enough blog post, or do I hold out for one more? Just kidding, I’m done. Vacation to the Wattenmeer and all that it included is done.

Day 29 – Bike Ride to Westerhever Leuchtturm

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

We are ready for our e-bike adventure to the Westerhever Leuchtturm (Lighthouse), and while it’s still as cold as yesterday, the patches of blue sky hold great promise. For some crazy reason, our hotel doesn’t start bike rentals until 9:00 a.m. or almost 5 hours into the day after the sun has started rising. The 29 Euro price for the entire day is pretty good when you consider that e-bikes in Germany of the quality we’ll be riding today cost between $3,300 and $4,300.

It was already 10:00 when we left Husum and entered the countryside. We pass many examples of these Frisian homes with their distinct thatched roofs, but photographing them isn’t always easy because they are often built right next to the street and have fences so close to the front of the house that getting an uninterrupted view is a challenge. Maybe this is a good thing; otherwise, I might turn the day into an architectural study of these unique historic homes.

This is not an example of our Riese und Müller e-bike, but it is a fine specimen of a very old bicycle. Our bikes today have a top speed of 35 km/h or 22mph, with the battery conveniently mounted over the back wheel. Klaus pointed out that our bikes are made just outside of Frankfurt in Darmstadt, so maybe he has some local pride about that. As we have 80 kilometers (50 miles) to cover today, we are in Eco mode, which is the lowest electric assist there is, with Tour, Sport, and Turbo remaining untested until we determine how the battery is performing. The Nordsee-Hotel Hinrichsen, where we are staying, supplied us with the bikes and also included the charging unit should we need to charge the battery down the road. Not only that, they gave us a phone number we could call if we had a bike failure so we could get a lift back to town.

Windmills and farms, dikes and sheep, clouds and wind, with those things, you have the Wattenmeer. If you time things just right, you may never see the sea out on these flatlands.

This environment is incredibly kind to bikers, well, for at least half the year, as I might be leery about the narrow roads in winter. In many cases, the roads have bike lanes that run parallel to the main road and far enough away to not be threatening. There will be times you have to share the streets with cars, and where I said these roads were narrow, I’m saying that cars have to pull over to let another car pass, so when a bike is on the road, they go to the far left. Fortunately, German drivers are extremely well-trained and mostly observe the rules.

Google Maps has many ideas of roadways that could cross this landscape. You have to do some pathfinding and zoom in on satellite maps, trying to find out if the other side of a dike is paved or just falls off into the sea. Well, not really the sea, but a massive mudflat (at least when the tide is out). By the way, this is not a bike trail but a street shared with the occasional driver.

While you can’t see it in this image, the sign on the front of the house is offering this as a vacation rental; I’m pretty sure that’s a joke.

I’ll take one in electric, please? The Citroën 2CV (Deux Chevaux or two horses) is a classic French car and was the answer to the Volkswagen beetle, and yes, I really would like one of these as an electric model. This or the amazing Citroën DS.

These damned northerners are Lutherans, and unlike the Bavarians, who are Catholics, with churches open every day of the week, the Lutherans and Protestants only believe in church on Sunday. Nothing like serious guilt to push people into needing a church at any time of day or night. Hmmm, this makes me wonder if synagogues are open 24/7.

Well, at least they have church tours available for bikers, but when are they open? That’s right, five church tours out on this 30-kilometer-long piece of land. As for the church, I couldn’t enter, it is the St. Nikolai Kirche.

Out in the middle of nowhere is a place called Tetenbüll, and with nothing around us besides the ubiquitous sheep, there is this small restaurant called Spieskommer. In the bike parking lot are more than a dozen of us, if only they had bike recharging facilities. This was a great stop as we are more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Husum, and I had anticipated more of these little stands, so I didn’t bring water. This turned out to be a nice little stop for lunch, and if you are thinking that this seems early for lunch, well, it took us 2 hours to get here.

Whoa, you two are only going twice the speed of walking, and you are on e-bikes? We both carry DSLR cameras, and while this might look like the 10th stop if you were counting the photos above, there were at least twice that in between where we stopped for photos Klaus wanted, photos I took I didn’t like, and verifying we were still going in the right direction.

With coffee, water, a fish sandwich, and a salami and cheese sandwich to refuel us, we were again on our way.

But not for long. Well, this is a first for me: a Milk Station, not a gas station, but a place to pump milk.

No joke, there’s self-serve milk on demand and a vending machine with eggs, beer (no I.D. required), juice, cereal, salami, and other stuff right there in this Holstein-painted hut. Look in the background of both photos, and you’ll see the barns where the milk comes from (Note to Caroline: Yeah, I know milk comes from cows, but those cows are in the barn, so give me a break).

Maybe we didn’t really need e-bikes in the first place, as this land is so flat, but when the wind howls, that extra power is super helpful. We only felt a couple of raindrops out here; seriously, only one or two tiny ones, but it was enough to send a prayer back to St. Nikolai Church in Uelvesbüll that we wouldn’t see rain. Oh, I forgot to add a detail regarding the cold: I don’t have a jacket or sweater with me, and there was no way I was going to wear that 6-pound raincoat while out on a ride either.

To walk on the Watt is to live, but what is a Watt? The Watt of “Wattenmeer” is translated as mudflat. And while I was up here nearly frozen, windburned, and getting sunburned without the sun, there was a family of six (three are out of frame) walking barefoot out in the mud.

Maybe this is a good time to explain the Wadden Sea (Wattenmeer in German) that stretches from the Netherlands past Germany and into Denmark. It is the world’s largest tidal flat and one of the two most important vacation destinations for Germans. The island of Sylt, which is north of us, is acclaimed for its natural beauty, but it’s also derided as being a destination for snooty, wealthy Germans that the larger part of the German population hates or at least dislikes.

Speaking of likes and dislikes, Germans love rules, their cars, others not talking to them, and expensive things. They don’t like rule breakers, conspicuous consumption, foreigners (unless they are tourists who go home), and ice cold drinks. As for me, I love laws but find silly rules that press too deeply into conformity here in Germany silly. I’m now old enough not to care about cars, I like cheap things, foreigners are great as they bring new things to culture and our palates, and I grew up on cold drinks, so those are okay too.

Etepetete is a great word to describe many Germans. What is etepetete? First of all, yes, it sounds kind of like “Ate a potato” to me, with German Wikipedia saying, “Fussy…excessively picky… princess-like behavior.” Well, this describes maybe 80% of the population here in the center of Europe. Hey, wait a second, that sounds like you, John! Yeah, I’ll own that, but Germans can’t see it in themselves, while their form of humility is of an arrogance that rubs me like sandpaper. In this regard, Germans and French are identical in that both feel that their culture and education give them the right to be as etepetete as they want.

But etepetete is NOT arrogance unless you consider intelligence and pride of culture as arrogance. America has its own arrogance found in vulgar strength, weapons, being loud, and dismissing everyone else as weak. Germans and French are rightfully arrogant if you call worldliness and tolerance with a measure of intellectualism thrown in as being etepetete. When so many other places on earth value strength and bloodshed as the hallmarks of civilization, then maybe central Europe would look weak and arrogant behind their peaceful multi-culturalism, but that would be wrong. Refined tastes of the few versus the unrefined maws of the un-enlightened masses might be confused. For those striving for a better world, they shouldn’t be humble as they try to demonstrate a better way. Long live being etepetete.

These sheep are heading in the direction of the Westerhever Leuchtturm, a pilgrimage we must all make.

Oh, how I wanted the sun if for no other reason than to be warm on the tiny path along the mudflat, but here we are at the lighthouse, and the heavy clouds lend big drama to the sight.

And the gray of the area also plays well to something Jutta shared with me prior to leaving Frankfurt. It was found in a poem from Theodor Storm about Die graue Stadt am grauen Meer or The Gray Town by the Gray Sea, which told of Storm’s hometown, Husum. It is titled:

The City:

At the grey shore by the grey sea
and apart, lies the city;
mists push down hard on the roofs
and through the quiet the sea booms
uniformly about the city.

No wood murmurs; in May, no bird
chirps without intermission;
only the migrating geese with harsh cries
fly by in the autumn night;
and by the shore the grass ripples.

Yet my heart clings to you,
you grey city by the sea;
forever and forever the magic of youth
will rest smilingly upon you; upon you,
you grey city by the sea.

Fifty miles (80 kilometers) just to see the lighthouse by the gray sea under gray skies was a perfect way to spend the day if you were John and Klaus.

I’d have sworn we had to go left from my internal compass, but obviously, it was malfunctioning as we had to go right. While our route back to Husum was a different one, we made the smart decision to just ride as the lower the sun got in the sky the colder it was getting. Not only was it getting chillier, but it was also growing windier. Why didn’t I bring a sweater when I knew that the temperatures wouldn’t go above 65 degrees? I’ll tell you why: in Arizona, during the winter, when we have many days of 60 – 65 degrees, it’s incredibly nice out, but we don’t have any humidity.

Grain, grasses, sheep, and cows are the main staples found on farms across the region. Most of the pauses taken by this time are chances to let our butts stop hurting for a minute, along with allowing thighs on fire to relax.

Klaus and I are very different people, which should go without saying, seeing he’s German and I’m American, but we do have a few things in common. We are married to the daughters of Jutta Engelhardt; our superpower is finding things for our spouses, we both love being outside, photography, and we both love cooking. Maybe because of the German/American thing, our demeanors are incredibly different. I’m loud in comparison, while Klaus is soft-spoken and often quiet. I volunteer too much and am heavily opinionated, while Klaus must be drawn out and has opinions that seem fixed but could be malleable.

We’ve certainly laughed enough while out on our first brothers-in-law’s trip away from everything, and we’ve enjoyed turning into pescatarians for this journey, learning just a little more about each other. I’d certainly do all of this again, although it would be in a warm and sunny environment, or I’d have the proper clothing. As a matter of fact, I’d love to see Klaus visit me in America where I could take him out on a road trip to the West Coast of America. Ideally, my sister-in-law would overcome some temporary hiccups she’s currently experiencing, and Caroline, Klaus, and I could get out for a visit to some of our favorite sites out our way.

We are nearly back in Husum and need a break. Wow, what a great stop, although the cafe was closed. This old building from 1610 that was a brewery from 1707 to 1850 now serves as a place to refuel when out on bike rides in the area. With the cafe, a nice clean bathroom open 24 hours a day, and an e-bike charging area outback, this is a serious luxury catering to those who choose to pedal through this landscape of northern Germany.