Europe – Page 28 – John Wise

Pilgrimage To Pfaffenhofen and The Temple of Yarn

April 6, 2013 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Got an early start today as we have a long drive ahead of us – nearly to Munich. The estimated autobahn driving time is 3.5 hours, maybe if I drive really fast, we can get there in under three. On the day we landed, I was quite happy to be hitting a quick 100mph on a 2-lane highway. Now, out here on one of the fastest roads in the world, the A3 autobahn, I’m struggling to get past 120mph. This car is just too underpowered; I’ve got BMWs passing me at what must be between 180 and 200mph. They roar by after coming up blindingly fast. This little VW feels like an ancient putt-putt that scoots along at a pedestrian pace. Instead of flying the entire distance to our destination of Pfaffenhofen, we detour through Ingolstadt to a small village just north of where we’re going. Any ideas what it was that might have brought us here?

There is one downside to speeding down the autobahn, and that is that it is like flying. In the clouds at 35,000 feet above the earth, you see little but vast areas of nearly nondescript land, sky, and clouds. There is a similarity to that when down here on an autobahn, villages lie in the distance but are quickly out of sight, not that you can look at anything when such concentration is required to maneuver in traffic where some people are driving at 80 mph and on occasion there are those who are gliding just above the surface at over 240mph. So when I get the opportunity to leave the race track, it’s nice to slow down to check out the local area. Most of what is here between Ingolstadt and Pfaffenhofen is farmland, with many fields dedicated to growing hops. We are, after all, in Bavaria; beer plays a big part in life down here.

Schnecke und Maus – Snail and Mouse. These are the nicknames given to Caroline and Stephanie by Jutta; they also happen to be two of the creatures made of yarn on display at Wollmeise Yarn Store in Pfaffenhofen, Germany. This store is a Mecca for Fiber Junkies. Wollmeise is famous worldwide. To be here, one has reached the Holy Temple of Fiber. I think I used all the superlatives I can find for the moment.

While the women are drooling over yarn and ‘colorways,’ I’m in need of the restroom. You must know that yarn stores are primarily women’s places, a man-free zone for the most part. So, to find a restroom covered in graffiti, you know you are somewhere very different. From all over the world, visitors to Wollmeise have left their mark high and low and side-to-side in this small uni-sex bathroom. I must have spent 10 minutes in here reading where people have come from and how much this place means to them. Some of them have seemingly taken mortgages out to afford to leave with pounds of this beautifully dyed wool. As I finally emerge from the ‘klo,’ Caroline and her sister are still working on choosing their first skeins. It will be two hours before their shopping bags weigh enough that they start to feel satisfied. I even chose some yarn for myself, Caroline will be making me a new hat and a pair of socks with my choice.

That’s right, it’s a bag full of Wollmeise yarn. Ask someone who knows this stuff, and they’ll tell you that Caroline has scored the equivalent of a box of treasure. Looks like we’ve got an early start to needing to buy an extra suitcase for the trip home.

We spent the majority of the day on this excursion. By the time we got back home, Klaus and Katharina were back from their horseback riding trip in Fulda, Germany. We won’t get to spend much time with Katharina yet, as she’s going to South England on Monday for a week-long trip as part of her studies. For as tired as everyone was, we all went to sleep too late, others even later than that.

Frankfurters

April 5, 2013 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

It’s colder today than yesterday so it’s a good thing I brought my handmade psychedelic wool beany and multi-color photographers gloves Caroline made me! With almost everyone else wearing the drab grays and blacks of a European winter, I’m walking around looking like Mr. Lollipop Head. I do believe I have made my fashion statement out here by the German stock market as I gleefully welcome the onset of spring – which is yet to arrive. From there, we light the way over to the Alte Oper, the old opera house. Only the shell remained after World War II, and while Caroline was growing up, she got to visit this historic opera house after renovations came to a conclusion. After its grand reopening, Caroline had the opportunity to perform in the Mozart Hall of the Opera while she was in the choir. Later, she watched Itzhak Perlman conduct, and, following that caught Madness, Ultravox, and a few others over the years.

From Alta Oper, we walked through Taunus Anlage, a large park in the downtown Frankfurt area, on our way to the Hauptbahnhof. As we strolled under the new highrises under construction, we came upon a sight neither of us thought we’d ever see again: the old-style telephone booth that used to dot the city.

While much of Frankfurt feels smaller to me today than it did two decades ago, the Hauptbahnhof, or main train station, seems much larger. Over 20 main tracks enter the main building; more are underground. This icon was built in 1888 and today serves about 350,000 people a day, making it the third busiest train station on Earth, behind two stations in Japan. While this place sees its share of junkies and homeless people, they are barely seen by most of the throngs of people who are pouring through here. Across the street is Kaiserstrasse and the red light district, but there are also many nice boutiques, restaurants, and even a Little India residing in a side passage.

As we reminisce and talk about Caroline’s job across the street, no, not in the red light district, she worked as a sales clerk at a computer store that focused on the Commodore line called GTI; we dipped into a rather large magazine shop, a really large magazine shop. What struck us the most was the rack that offered scientific magazines; they probably feature more scientific publications than the average American bookstore has, featuring magazines on guns, hunting, and muscle building combined! We’re talking serious geekdom on this shelf. We leave impressed, if not a little sad too, that typically, we only find two to five science publications on offer, and in U.S. airports, we are lucky if we see one.

Back down in the underground, we once again board the U5 for our short ride to the National Library stop on the line where we walk around the corner to the hospital. Between the cleaning of her room, physical therapy, and lunch, we didn’t have much time to visit before we headed out to get our own lunch and visit Jutta’s apartment to take care of a few things. On the way to Saalburgstrasse, we stopped at a small shop to share a Döner Kebab; think of it as a gyros sandwich to make it easy on yourself. Sadly, our reunification with this Turkish staple was only mediocre, we’ll have to find better.

Walking into Jutta’s apartment was like walking into a museum. Books from the late 1700s to drawings and sculptures from her two daughters when they were in grade school, to the artifacts and souvenirs she has collected on the many trips to the U.S. she has made since 1997 when we invited her over the first time for a short two week holiday that brought her up the coast of California and over to the Grand Canyon. Jutta’s life is on display in every corner, but it’s a bit sad and cold in here without her presence. We washed the dishes and straightened up what we could, as there were a few things left undone due to her fall. With things in order and our own fill of nostalgia starting to overwhelm us, it was time to get back on Burgerstrasse to catch another train for a return visit with Jutta.

After one more visit to see Jutta in the hospital and following her dinner, we are again at Konstablerwache before heading over to Hauptwache for the train ride back to Stephanie and Klaus’s. Instead of taking the train all the way through, we left the underground to walk up Zeil again. Good thing we did, as it gave us this perfect moment to grab a photo of two Frankfurters in one amazing photo while on our walk.

Mein 50. Geburtstag in Deutschland

April 4, 2013 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

It’s 11:00 pm when we wake; well, it is in Arizona; here in Frankfurt, it’s 7:00 am, and I feel like I could have slept another couple of hours. More important than sleep is my need to get outside and see the city. Not far from the front door of my sister-in-law Stephanie’s house is the train stop that will bring us to Hauptwache, one of the main train stops when traveling through Frankfurt. Stephanie brings us to a small food cart, informing us that this lady makes some great sandwiches. It is a good sandwich, maybe even as great as we were told, but is it a special way they cook their eggs? I don’t think so; it must be the bread, jaw-strengthening German bread, the kind that leaves little time to talk because concentration and a big effort must be paid to the satisfying chew.

Steph goes to her connecting train. We need to re-explore the underground area of Hauptwache to see what’s changed before popping up at ground level next to Katharinenkirche – St. Catherine Church. It’s cold up here; funny enough, a sign reads 4c (39f) here on 4/4 – my birthday. The familiar smell of the underground train system is replaced with the smell of bakeries. Most everything looks about the same. Some businesses that were landmarks to us 18 years ago are now gone; in some cases, nothing has replaced them.

Not far from the Römer, we approach the Main River (pronounced “Mine”). We won’t cross it yet this morning, as we are trying to pay attention to the time, so we turn around and head back to Zeil. The shopping area stretches from the Alte Opera through Hauptwache, on the side streets paralleling Zeil, over to Konstablerwache – our present destination.

Along the way, we are distracted by an encounter that was bound to happen sooner or later – Caroline spots a yarn store. This being a special day, I must indulge her, and so we enter, not to leave the way we came. Armed with new project material, we can now finish our walk to Konstablerwache. We were supposed to get on the train here, but as it’s Thursday, there’s an open-air market taking place. Not able to resist, we peruse the offerings. Something has changed in Germany; the choices on offer are well beyond what our memories remind us of what one could buy at these markets. Internationalism and the demands of a growing consumer market have obviously had their effect on staid old Deutschland.

Into the underground, we are looking to board the U5 train. We do not want the U5 going south, we are looking for the direction of Preungesheim. With my day pass and Caroline borrowing her mom’s yearly train pass, we are quickly on the train, listening to the still familiar female voice that informs us that the next stop is Musterschule, which means the stop after that will be our old neighborhood – Glauburgstrasse. The distance between stops feels shorter these days; the expanse we once knew has been replaced by familiarity with distances as defined by the American West, where things are truly on a grand scale.

We walk around our old stomping grounds with a strange feeling, not a deja vu kind of moment, but more of a kind of surreal, “Are we really here?” Things are slightly different here on the corner of Glauburgstrasse and Eckenheimer Landstrasse. The old corner building housing a chicken and egg shop with a veggie stand as its main shop fronts has been replaced by a new building that now has a bank on the corner. A bakery we shopped at frequently is gone, but we know exactly where we are.

At Gluckstrasse, we turn right, the apartment building we lived in (#8) is the only building that retains its original color. We go to the front door to see if there are any familiar names – none. I push the door; it’s open, so we go inside and check if our old key still works. Just kidding, but I do get a photo of Caroline in front of the door. As we go back downstairs, Caroline sees that the basement door is open, so we have to check that out, too. Besides the nostalgia, we see little else of interest.

Time to continue on our route towards Preungesheim to see my mother-in-law Jutta, who was just up the road one more stop at Bürger Hospital. At the front desk, we are directed to the 6th floor, N wing, room 614. Jutta’s smile was waiting for us, jumping out of the door before a word of hello could be shared. Next, her eyes told us just how big the hello would be as she was able to exclaim an enthusiastic greeting of how thrilled she was that we were here. With Jutta’s roommate still sleeping, we did our best to speak quietly, but the moment carried us away, and our voices soon filled the quiet with happiness. For the next couple of hours, we visited until lunch showed up. With a big hug and a promise to return soon, Caroline and I went to get some lunch for ourselves.

Caroline thought we should jump on the train, but I opted for walking. Over Händelstrasse to Eckenheimer Landstrasse, we walked along looking at the architecture we’ve been long away from. Along the way, a bakery demanded Caroline come in for an almond horn – the best one we’ve ever had! Back in the area of Glauburgstrasse, we started looking for more of the familiar, and there it was. Not only was ‘it’ still here, but it was open too; ‘it’ was our favorite ice cream shop – Eis Christina.

And what made it our favorite? Spaghetti ice cream, that’s what. To be clear, there is no pasta in “Spaghetti Eis.” This concoction starts with a large dollop of fresh whipped cream – the real stuff, no squirted out of a can foamy cream-like fluff. Next, vanilla ice cream is pressed through a sieve, producing what looks like spaghetti. Covered with strawberry sauce in lieu of tomato sauce and a bit of shredded white chocolate shaken on top of that, replacing the need for Parmesan cheese, and now you have an amazing Spaghetti Eis.

To work off the dessert we’ve placed before our proper meal, we continue our walk with the idea we’ll go to Sachsenhausen across the Main River. My brain works hard to find the way. As close as Sachsenhausen is, it wasn’t somewhere Caroline spent much time, so she’s of little help. During the American occupation of Germany, Sachsenhausen was a hugely popular spot with soldiers and tourists, too. Now, those military personnel with a healthy thirst for drinking are mostly gone. Sachs has to survive on the Germans and the still plentiful tourists that venture onto this side of the river.

I had been looking for Europa Grill, but where I thought I’d find it, I only found Caspian Grill. A guy standing across the street from “Europa Grill” told us that the place was sold five years earlier. Lucky for us, a few doors down is A’mir Sandwich, a Lebanese cafe that’s still in business. Back when I lived here, I would have one of their chicken shawarma weekly. We split my old favorite and then heaped a ton of gratitude on the owner for the yummy food and then he even pulled Caroline into the kitchen to pose with him for our photo.

From here, it was time to make our way back to the hospital, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t do a small amount of sightseeing on the way. Before crossing the river, we came upon a church that neither of us had visited before, the Gothic Aisless Church of St. Mary. How could we have missed this before? Caroline had lived in Frankfurt for 28 years, I 10, while this church has been here since 1309, and we just happened to miss it. Oh, the things we take for granted.

At the river, we hesitated to cross it and instead walked along the bank until we reached the next bridge. Swans, ducks, seagulls, geese, and other aquatic birds moved along with us, obviously accustomed to others who pass by to feed them. At the pedestrian bridge, we are greeted by a guitar player on one end and an accordion player on the other. These are all reminders of things we truly do miss from our time living in Europe.

Back through Römer to Zeil, but again we are detoured.

This time, it is Klein Markt Halle, another marketplace, except this one is not open-air but still has many small vendors selling their wares almost every day of the week.

We had understood that this place had closed down long ago, but lucky for us, it is still here, and it’s looking better than ever.

Now we are finally walking up Zeil, passing Dunkin Donuts on the way (this was definitely an OMG moment) to Konstablerwache and back in the U5 to the hospital. While Caroline talked with her mom, I sat nearby and wrote and wrote and wrote so I might stay up to date with my blog. Jet lag has been complicating my efforts, as this will not have been posted on the 4th, which was my plan, but days later. When I finish my writing, I join the ladies, and we continue to talk through Jutta’s dinner until we, too are hungry. We bid Jutta well and offer that we’ll be back in the morning. Again, she beams in, telling us how happy she is that we are in Frankfurt to visit with her. It feels good to help her feel so happy.

Dinner for us will be at the place I have dreamed of visiting again someday; today is that someday. We are going to Wielandstubb, and nothing else can replace that. On the corner of Friedberger Landstrasse and Wielandstrasse, this restaurant was a favorite that is just around the ‘ecke’ of our old apartment. Walking into the place, it wasn’t too busy yet; we picked a table and sat down – we were all smiles. We look into all corners, at the other visitors, and finally at the menu.

Not that we needed to check out the menu, but nostalgia demanded it. I’ve known for years what I would order should I ever get here again. We are starting with Handkase mit Music. This dish is a soft cheese soaked in brine (Handkäse) served with chopped onion (music – maybe the combination of cheese and onion is responsible for the ‘music’) and a basket of dark rye bread. For our main course, I’ll be having Jaeger Schnitzel and Bratkartoflen – schnitzel in a mushroom sauce with fried potatoes. Mine was easy enough to describe, Caroline’s won’t be as she’s having Grüne Sosse. This uniquely Frankfurt dish is relatively simple, consisting of boiled potatoes, two boiled eggs halved, and four scoops of grüne sosse (green sauce). What makes this so special is this green sauce, which is no less than seven fresh herbs chopped fine and mixed into ‘dickmilch’ – a kind of thick milk. Caroline orders an apple wine with her meal, another Frankfurt specialty.

Dinner couldn’t be better. Actually, it could; I should have ordered the Grüne Sosse; it is amazingly better than my fried pork. Don’t get me wrong, Wielandstubb makes a terrific schnitzel, but the veg option was a thousand times better. Probably an age thing, or maybe I’m more in love with veggies today than I was 20 years ago. This was the greatest birthday dinner ever.

Back on the train, we are soon at Stephanie’s, but she isn’t home yet. She wouldn’t arrive for another 45 minutes after our return. Now almost 9:00 in the evening, and probably a smart thing to get to sleep; instead, we talk into the middle of the night. Waking up in less than six hours won’t be easy, but I’m a young fifty.

Art and Influence

April 4, 2011 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John Wise in front of the Ensor House and Museum in Oostende, Belgium

One of Caroline and my first trips together was to the Belgian coast, a place I often thought I would like to live. In the small town of Oostende, I brought Caroline to the James Ensor House and Museum. I had been here once before and now wish I might once more have the opportunity to visit again someday. The dearth of interesting museums dedicated to the work of evocative artists here in America leaves a lot to be desired. For example, we visited the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it’s just a big old office building commandeered as a drab resting place for some of his work.

Caroline at the enterance of the Paul Delvaux Museum in Koksijde, Belgium

The next stop on this trip was my third visit to the Paul Delvaux Museum. Along with Otto Dix and Francis Bacon, Delvaux was one of my favorite artists. On my first visit, a visitor who was also enamored with the work of one of Belgium’s greatest artists told me that the man himself had been at the museum just the day before. He described the most piercing blue eyes and fragile, lithe fingers that impressed this visitor with the idea that those hands had created such beautiful works of art. This stranger was back for a second visit with the hopes that Delvaux might make another appearance. Delvaux was already 90 back then on my first visit; he would live another seven years before passing on in 1994.

Zeebrugge, Belgium

April 3, 2011 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John Wise and Caroline Engelhardt on the North Sea at Zeebrugge, Belgium

From that old black and white film we had developed, these photos of Caroline and I were taken while walking along the North Sea in Zeebrugge, Belgium – a favorite place of mine in winter. During the summers on the coast of Belgium, the crowds are heavy, the cafes full. But in the winter, the beach is empty, cold, and windy. The cafes that stay open year-round are mostly empty at this time. Black and white photography accurately captures the wintery gray feeling while strolling next to the dark black sea.

John Wise

April 2, 2011 JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John Wise in Frankfurt, Germany 1989

John Wise is pictured here. Yep, that’s me. The beard was thin back in 1989. I had just recently fallen in love with and subsequently moved in with Caroline Engelhardt. We would hang out in Europe, living a decadent, bohemian life, enjoying the nightlife, music, art, culture, and depravity that two young outsiders were enthusiastically embracing. We read too much, were enamored with a rich sub-culture, and were a bit unconventional – but as much as many of our acquaintances. Maybe we were just lazy and delusional; it’s hard to tell when living in a blur.