Day 27 – North To The Sea

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, Germany

To bed late, early to rise. Neither Klaus nor I were woken by the alarm, but he woke long before I did. Taking an earlier train to the Hauptbahnhof than planned, we were able to grab a bite to eat and coffee casually instead of sprinting through the main train station.

Onboard the RE50 train to Fulda in the quiet 1st class section; we left Frankfurt at precisely 6:26; this is Germany, after all. Travel time is about 90 minutes, but without wifi, things feel a bit primitive. For the next 8 hours, we’ll be on one train or another as we have three connections over the course of the day.

Klaus Engelhardt on train to Fulda, Germany

Klaus is my travel companion today. This is the first time he and I have ever gone somewhere together; not only that, it is his first vacation without his wife, Stephanie. It is also our victory lap for having finished everything that needed to be done with our mother-in-law’s apartment. The keys were turned over to the owner ten days early, and he’ll be able to let his next tenant move in early.

On the way to Fulda, Germany

Regarding the 8 hours of travel, we are headed to Husum, Germany, in the far north. This is a fairly good starting point to explore the Wattenmeer (Wadden Sea), which is a shallow body of water of tidal flats and wetlands. When Caroline and I were last in the area, we never saw the sea as low tide makes it disappear, but Caroline did walk in the famous mud. With Klaus and I up in the Wattenmeer until Wednesday, we should have enough time to see many of the sights that we previously missed.

On the way to Fulda, Germany

Over the coming few days, I’ll share (because I know how to overdo that so well) much, if not everything, about what we see and experience. With that in mind, here’s a barn on a farm with windmills in the background out the window of the train somewhere between Frankfurt and Fulda.

Fulda, Germany

Ninety minutes later, we are transferring to the train that will bring us to Hamburg for the next leg of the trip.

Fulda, Germany

The train that was supposed to be 20 minutes late turned out to only be 10 minutes late. We are now on the slowest moving ICE (Inter City Express) train ever as we crawl down the track at about 130km/h or 80 mph.

Between Fulda and Göttingen, Germany

Maybe you were expecting my exceptional photography skills to be on display here. Taking photos from a train window leaves a few things to be desired, starting with clean windows, but we can do nothing about that.

Between Fulda and Göttingen, Germany

Fortunately, there haven’t been 100 beautiful little villages we’ve passed as we are out in the middle of nowhere.

Between Fulda and Göttingen, Germany

Just pulled into Gottingen 3 hours after we left Frankfurt. Hannover is our next stop, and then Hamburg. Strange enough, time seems to be flying. The stress that comes with driving your own car makes 3 hours of travel a bit tiresome, while being the passenger just gazing out the window is not only relaxing but also offers the chance for a random photo.

Between Göttingen and Hannover, Germany

The train has finally picked up speed as we race over along at 221 km/h (137 mph)

Between Göttingen and Hannover, Germany

The green blur of a bullet train moving along like a bullet.

Between Göttingen and Hannover, Germany

We were in a tunnel when I took this hence the white streak across Klaus’s eyes; they are lights outside the train as my camera is focused into the darkness, but the reflection jumped back at me. Not the result I expected but not a bad one either. Like a gazelle, we are about to leap into Hannover.

Between Hannover and Hamburg, Germany

As we inch closer to midday and further away from Frankfurt, we had to give up our unreserved seats on the left side of the train for the sunnier right side where the warmth of the sun is making for heavy eyes. That or the less than five hours of sleep either of us had is playing a role. I guess it goes without saying that my step count is looking ugly, but we should make up for that after we arrive at the sea.

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof Germany

We arrived in Hamburg with almost enough time to spare. Well, we had a minute or two before we had to board the train on the track right next to where we pulled in. The ambiguity of what part of the train was ours confused even Klaus, and we quickly learned we were on the segment of the train going to Kiel and not Flensburg. No problem, we jumped off and headed for “our section,” which was the next car, but the doors were already closed and were not going to reopen as I pushed the button and then the train started to move. This wasn’t me making it go; it was the train saying goodbye to idiots as it pulled away.

The next train leaves in an hour. Time for lunch, which turned out to be as bad as the cup of coffee we didn’t enjoy on the trip from Fulda to Hamburg. So, attention Deutsche Bahn, your coffee is meh, your user experience and user interface are both meh, and now on this regional train with 90 minutes of travel time, we don’t have wifi. Oh, and that part from Frankfurt to Fulda is also 90 minutes, with no wifi, what decade are you guys operating in? What is the incentive to travel by rail if the ability to connect and get fueled up on good coffee doesn’t exist? This begs the question, is this your idea of 1st class ICE service, really?

Rail tracks north of Hamburg, Germany

We arrived in Hamburg to gray skies, but once we were some kilometers north of the city, the clouds started to break up, offering great views of billowy clouds. The cumulous display might be part of the weather forecast that suggested Germany was in for some heavy rains everywhere except Husum. You are looking at rail tracks photographed with a slow shutter to smear them. Next stop, Schleswig, or maybe another photo if I see something spectacular.

Schleswig-Holstein Cows in their ancestral lands in Germany

I almost missed taking this photo, and I’m surprised I got any of these cows in the frame. These are the famed Holstein breed of cattle in their ancestral lands: Schleswig-Holstein. The Germans have built these cows for over 218 years using similar processes they’ve perfected in building the Mercedes-Benz. If you see these cows in other lands, be assured they were made in Brazil or Pakistan from inferior parts, as only the Germans hold the patent to these highly engineered robot cows. Final fact: in full gallop, a real Holstein can reach speeds of over 240 km/h or 148 mph.

Wind turbines in northern Germany

Evidence of Germany’s move to alternative energy has been following us the entire day so far. Wind and solar are scattered over the landscape far and wide, and contrary to German worries about these turbines killing birds, I only witnessed a couple of dozen being shredded by those blades of terror.

Random town on the way to Schleswig, Germany

And then there was that moment I realized we’d become airborne, flying over small villages to which access to mass transportation is denied in order to ensure those people never escape. I think I’m happy I cannot look out my window as it appears it’s a straight drop down to the merciless earth below.

Hedeby and Danevirke are the areas I learned about on the website listed here. This strip of land has been settled as far back as the Viking Age and is the narrowest point between the Baltic and North Seas. This also acted as the border area between Scandinavia and Central Europe. I photographed this on our brief stop in Schleswig, which features as a starting point to explore the area, as far as I can tell.

Looking north, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from here, if you could see that far on this very flat part of the earth, you’d be looking into Denmark. We are on the fourth and final segment of our trip to the top of Europe.

We’ve reached Husum on the North Sea, but before anything else can happen, Klaus has to get a COVID test. Without that, he cannot check into the hotel with me, nor can he eat in restaurants if it proves too cold up here. Then again, he’ll have to get a test at least every 24 hours if he’s to eat in restaurants. While he waits for the swabbing of his sinus, I’m outside, happy I’ve been fully vaccinated. With his test complete, he’ll have to wait about 20 minutes for the results so we head to the hotel to get checked in. By the time our bags are dropped off in our room, his negative results arrive; we show them to the person at the front desk, and we are good for the remainder of our stay here on the edge of the Wattenmeer.

How about a nice 10-kilometer (6 miles) walk before dinner? We didn’t leave with that in mind, but that’s where the trail took us as we left the harbor area, walking towards the sea. Reaching one of the dikes, we went through the gate and saw this sign asking dog owners to keep their hounds on leashes so as not to ruffle the wool of the local sheep.

There are dikes that are pooped on by grazing sheep and then there are pristine levees such as this one that, with a little bit of blue sky, look as though they could be a Windows 95 background.

The weather here is a rapidly changing skyscape of racing clouds that change from billowy white to menacing gray, threatening imminent rain, but they, too, just stream overhead and are quickly gone.

There’s so much to see here, and the light is playing a significant role in what get’s photographed and subsequently shared as my photographs shift between dull and vibrant as quickly as a cloud moves from one side of the sky to the other.

I can’t help but feel I’m looking at the canopy of the world that is forming north of here. These are the clouds that floated out of America, across the Atlantic, passed over the United Kingdom, and are on their way to Scandinavia before retiring in the Arctic. Like whales, they are migrating; only these are leviathans of the skies. You can trust that I don’t really believe that weather and the cumulus that inhabits it work that way, but you also can’t know how my imagination works.

Earlier, I wrote that the Germans are building cows, they also build land using sticks. By limiting the wave action using these water breaks in shallow waters, they can limit erosion and start collecting sediments that extend the land, thus taking from the sea instead of the other way around.

Even at the end of the Earth, you will find art, in this case, wind trousers. The German word “Windhose” means “whirlwind” or “tornado,” so this is, in effect, a pun.

I suppose in some way I promised loads of poop when I showed the pristine dike above, but from this angle and distance, this land, too, appears perfect. Look closely at where your feet are when walking here, though, as evidence of the sheep is everywhere.

It is not 1:29 p.m. when the Lamb of God appears to John; it is late in the day and nearly evening, though the sun is traveling with us at such a late hour. Looking at this photo I’m struck that maybe this was the sign I was looking for in visiting all the churches and cathedrals on previous journeys. Here was Jesus himself looking into my soul and I gazed upon him as a dumb animal as I’m too blind to see the obvious right before me. So was he the dumb animal, or am I?

We’d almost sat down for dinner at a table right here next to the water when the sun peeked out for another performance, giving me what I thought would be my sunset photo. I was wrong. We were also wrong about sitting next to the water as the wind picked up, and it was feeling cold. This contrast of a temperature of 61 degrees (16c) to the 95 degrees (35c) we were having in Frankfurt was a bit unexpected in how jarring we recoiled from what should have been a pleasantly cool temperature.

It was nearly 10:00 p.m. when we left the Compass Restaurant where we dined on a couple of great fish dinners. What I forgot to share earlier is that we’d stopped for ice cream before our walk, which was part of what necessitated our lengthy stroll next to the sea. Now with 17 hours into a long day and tired feet that barely carry us back to our hotel, we are just minutes away from falling asleep with wishes to not arise with the first bird song we hear.

Day 21 – Jutta’s Early Years Part 1

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

My mother-in-law, Jutta Engelhardt, was born Jutta Frieda Luise Auguste Linnenkohl. At least, that is what her birth certificate says. According to this photo album inscription, the intended name was Frida Luise Auguste Annemarie Jutta Linnenkohl, but for some reason, Jutta’s father, Wilhelm, got this wrong. I suppose with so many names, Annemarie just slipped his mind. He also made a mistake with Jutta’s birthday. She was born in 1935, not 1936, in Magdeburg, Germany. Regarding all these names, Frida is Jutta’s grandmother, Louise and Augusta are both Wilhelm’s sisters and Jutta’s aunts, and finally, Annemarie was Jutta’s godmother.

During these past 21 days, I’ve been staying at her old apartment, I’ve been trying to bring order to the many things Jutta collected over the previous 85 years. Among her possessions are hundreds of old photos, some with information about who is in them and when they were taken, while others are images of people and places I can’t identify. Over the next couple of days, I will be sitting down with Jutta to see what we can figure out. The images in this post were easy as there was a photo album dedicated to her first five years. These are only some of the photos, hopefully enough to tell a story.

An innocent baby who was born unable to comprehend that the country she was brought into would be tossed into one of the greatest turmoils in recorded history. In the years I’ve known her, Jutta has often struggled to smile, but this is evidence that deep in her nature is the ability to do just that.

On the left is Jutta’s maternal grandmother, Frida Vespermann; behind her is her brother Friedhelm, born Friedrich Wilhelm Georg, and behind him, their mother, Helene Linnenkohl in Magdeburg around the end of 1935. Frida was born 28th of April 1870 and passed away just before Christmas on 23 December 1938. Jutta’s brother Friedhelm was about ten years old in this photo; he was born on 23rd September 1925.

This is the second-floor flat owned by the Linnenkohl family in Magdeburg. Jutta is being held by her mother, Helene, with brother Friedhelm looking on in the Herrenzimmer (Gentleman’s room).

This photo from 20 August 1936 was taken in the Linnenkohl’s garden. From left clockwise is Friedhelm, Jutta’s father Wilhelm, grandmother Frida, Helene, and, of course, Jutta. Wilhelm was born 9th of August 1891 in Stötterlingen but grew up in Quedlinburg.

Jutta in her crib. Dated 1936.

Summer 1937 in Bad Oeynhausen, visiting grandmother Frida Vespermann and Jutta with a toy she remembers fondly. She shared with me that the swan’s head moved back and forth when you pulled it.

Friedhelm, Jutta, and their mother, Helene Linnenkohl, in August 1937, sat with a professional photographer to make a portrait to give to Wilhelm. Jutta just remembered that her father referred to Helene as “Lenchen,” which was the name everyone used for her.

Important to note in this family photo is the cabinet you can see on the left and the small round table next to it. Jutta owns these to this day, and they both sit in her room. By the way, the small round table was called a Rauchtisch or “smoking table.”

Jutta Engelhardt nee Linnenkohl in Frankfurt, Germany 2021

Here’s Jutta 85 years later with the same cabinet, smoking table, and the chair she’s sitting in was her father’s writing chair.

The date on the photo says 1939, so Jutta is probably approaching her 4th birthday in this photo. Back in the day, her hair-do was all the rage, a Hahnenkamm or “cockscomb,” a sort of faux-hawk for girls.

Summer 1939 in Braunlage in Harz east of Magdeburg. Friedhelm is in back, Jutta in the middle, and Wilhelm is on the oars wearing knickerbockers.

In late 1939, Wilhelm was in uniform. Not only did he serve Germany during the war, but he also served in World War I. He was trained as a veterinarian and served in the military as an Officer in Reserve, taking care of the many military horses left in service. Some families might not want to acknowledge a dark spot in their history, but obviously, millions of Germans were part of a cause that ultimately proved ruinous.

In early 1940, Friedhelm is seen here for his confirmation posing with Jutta. Jutta still remembers paving his path with flowers as he returned home after receiving the sacrament.

Very late 1941 and probably the last photo of Jutta with her now 16-year-old brother. Friedhelm died fighting in World War II in Poland on the 29th of August 1944. Helene never forgave Wilhelm for allowing Friedhelm to forge his birth year in order to join the Wehrmacht.

Day 20 – A Long Walk Along The Nidda

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Konstablerwache in Frankfurt, Germany

Waking at four in the morning is for the birds, and maybe that’s who woke me. As much as I tried to return to much-needed slumber, I couldn’t fight it any longer and, after about 45 minutes called Caroline to tell her goodnight and she could say good morning to me. After a bit of editing, a shower, finishing yesterday’s brief amount of writing, and it was time to get on the train. The U4 only gets me to Konstablerwache. Emerging from the underground it was abundantly obvious that this square had been party central last night; trash was strewn everywhere and blowing in the breeze. On Zeil, it was strangely quiet, with maybe half a dozen other people out here this morning.

Subway platform in Frankfurt, Germany

Back downstairs at Hauptwache, where I can catch the U1, U3, or U8 lines to Zeilweg in Heddernheim and the place is empty. Mind you, it’s not particularly early, but this is very strange and drives home that the club scene is currently not a thing. Under normal circumstances, those who spent the night in clubs across Frankfurt would be heading home right now. I remember those days well when leaving the nightlife at 6:00 a.m.; you’d run into shock that it was daylight and that others seemed to be starting a day just as the party was ending.

Subway posters from Frankfurt, Germany

I’ve shared these placards plastering the walls in the subway before, and I will continue to have at least one photo of the same from all subsequent visits to Germany too. The differences between the cultures of Frankfurt and Phoenix couldn’t be more strikingly made obvious by what is shown right here. I’ll translate some of the things going on over the next weeks here, but consider that this small sample of posters is not in any way fully representative of all events. For the real eggheads, a Theodor Adorno lecture is happening over the course of 3 days. Oh, other eggheads won’t feel left out as literary talks, along with dialogs about medicine, are on the horizon. Talking not your thing? How about an opera performed in eight rooms? My guess is that this is about social distancing, not the opera, but the way it’s being presented. Finally, maybe you are interested in one of the many open-air events centered around drag shows, cabaret, dance, performance art, and more – or you could learn about urban gardening. And Phoenix? Oh sure, we’ll have some poorly attended music events here and there, but community-level participative performances and talks about literature, medicine, and philosophy, well, that’s for nerdy Germans.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

Shortly after 8:00, I arrived in Heddernheim at the Engelhardt’s. With a quick breakfast of some rolls, butter, and jam, Klaus and I were soon out the door for a walk along the Nidda River in the direction of Bad Vilbel.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

Just how it worked out that the high temperature for the day was only going to be 72 degrees (22c) is an act of the weather angels smiling down on those of us out to enjoy a nice Sunday walk or ride along this small, slow-moving river.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

I’ve never seen a thistle I didn’t like, and one that is under the sun is all the better.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

Sandwiched between the villages surrounding Frankfurt are small woodlands, rented garden allotments called Schrebergarten, farms growing sugar beets, various grains, and corn, and many miles of trails that criss-cross the landscape, allowing those out for some recreation to travel different pathways all the time.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

The idea was to go at least as far as Bad Vilbel, and as long as the landscape looks like this, I think I could walk right through Fulda, into Erfurt, and all the way to Leipzig. Google is showing me that the path would be 331 kilometers long (205 miles), requiring 68 hours of walking or about 16 days with my current endurance.

As I’m considering this, I have this great idea for Germany, and Europe for that matter. Just as Elon Musk is building a network of charging stations across the United States for his Tesla brand, how about you Europeans build out a network of e-bike charging stations so people like my wife and I can pedal our way into multi-week adventures through the lesser-visited areas of your lands.

NOTE: A kind reader just shared this link with me in a comment, and I felt like it should go right here. He pointed out that there is a service/website that caters to cyclists pedaling across Germany called BettundBike or Bed & Bike. Campsites, hotels, apartments, and various hosts cater to those traveling by bicycle. Click here to visit Bettundbike.com.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

Maybe three hours down the trail, we stop at a small riverside cafe for a bratwurst and water. We’ve been walking about 7 miles (11km) by now and are less than half a mile from Bad Vilbel with a good chance we’ll go further as the day is perfect for this walk. While there’ve been mostly bicycles out here, there are a good amount of walkers too, but only two photographers, Klaus and John.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

We can’t see horses and not strike up a conversation about Katharina. That’s right, Katharina, we also think of you while out and about in the world and hope that you, too, think of us.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

These are not just photos of more of the same, although I wouldn’t fault you for thinking just that. For me, they are motivational reminders that the train, car, or taxi is not always needed to get places in Europe, especially if you have time. Although, what does all the time in the world matter if you don’t have your health to be able to explore such wonderful options? If I can walk 14 miles (22km) today at 58 years old, I hope to be able to walk at least 10 miles (16km) on this kind of journey when I’m 68.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

Rewilding the rivers is an ongoing process in Germany, but one that’s been being taken seriously for at least a couple of decades now. As more lands and waterways are brought back to their natural states, more recreational opportunities open up, inviting us to walk in this restored nature or enjoy a slow moment rowing down a river.

On the Nidda River in the Frankfurt area of Germany

We’re not very fast, but that’s likely attributable to our stopping to listen to frogs, read about bats, watch a heron fishing for breakfast, or try to figure out the crops growing along the way, all the while taking photos of all we can.

This attractive, mostly glass building next to the Nidda River in Bad Vilbel houses a replica of the Oceanus Mosaic that was once a part of a thermal bath in this city. Today, the original is on display in a museum in Darmstadt, but the next photo will give you an idea of what I looked at this afternoon.

Bad Vilbel, Germany

This was not easy to photograph, and while I’m not exactly happy with how the three photos I assembled turned out, it was the best I was going to do; without having a drone, I could hover overhead to take the image from that perspective. The provenance of the mosaic is Roman; they created it here in Bad Vilbel back in the 2nd century.

Bad Vilbel, Germany

The lone spawning flower in a sea of red flowers.

Dortelweil, Germany

We walked and walked until there was nowhere else to go, and where was this nowhere I refer to? Dortelweil, Germany.

Klaus Engelhardt in Dortelweil, Germany

It took us a few minutes before we ran into someone who could tell us where we might find a place to sit down for a coffee, water, and snack. We ended up at Cafe Rupf for just that and it was had in the shade too. The break was certainly needed by this time and that the train only came through every 30 minutes was just fine with us as we were not in a hurry. Our 3:30 train was canceled due to some technical difficulties somewhere on the route; we laughed while others cursed. I thought I’d pull out the notebook and write, but instead, Klaus and I continued to chat until, at 4:00, our train pulled in.

Rather abruptly, we were all of a sudden at Eschersheim, where Klaus was leaving the train, and I was staying on until Hauptbahnhof (Frankfurt Main Station). Instead of getting off where I thought I would, I saw that I could stay on to Konstablerwache, putting me right where I needed to be for the tram to Bornheim-Mitte. The more I thought about it though, I started thinking about how tired I was and that I’d have to go out for dinner later, so maybe I should tend to that early?

At the end of the line at Frankfurt Süd, I left the S6 train for the walk to Schweitzerstrasse. Adolph Wagner’s was my choice for dinner; Caroline and I last ate there years ago. This path of least resistance offered hope that I could crash early tonight.

I’ve now eaten Grüne Soße at Adolf Wagner, Fichtekranzi, Speisekammer, Blauer Bock, Apfelwein Solzer, Malepartus, Hauptwache Cafe, Gaststatte Atschel, Frau Rauscher, Leib & Seele, and the Engelhardt’s and I think I’m forgetting one or two. This leaves only Ebbelwoi Unser, Klosterhof, and Zum Lahmen Esel for me to visit during this visit to Germany.

Day 18 – Travel Day

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not much is crooked; this must be modern.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 17 – Jetzt In Frankfurt

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some things are just cute.

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

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

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

Watching the clouds is never a bad thing.

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

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

Day 16 – Routine

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Breakfast at Eifler Bakery in Frankfurt, Germany

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

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

Open-Air Market on Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Bicycle Bell in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Tram Stop on Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Dead Coyote in Phoenix, Arizona

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

Dead Bird in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Balloons on Zeil in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Random shop in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Lebenshaus St. Leonhard in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Jutta Engelhardt in Frankfurt, Germany

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

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

Römer in Frankfurt, Germany

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

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

Kleinmarkthalle in Frankfurt, Germany

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

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

Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Bergerstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Saalburgstrasse in Frankfurt, Germany

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

Döneria in Frankfurt, Germany

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