Thursday, 03 August 2006

Europe Post No. 4
7-18-2006: Trains + heat = Berlin
Two days of sight-seeing force me to write instead of sleep right away. Maybe not such a good idea... oh well, I'm on vacation.

Monday was less eventful. A large part of the day was spent at Waschwelt (Washworld auf Englisch), but we have clean clothes! While the family watched people, I wandered over to the churchyard behind Ludwigskirche and watched people over there. It was normal except this random guy asked me for a light. I had no clue what he was saying until he made a flicking motion and then I said "nein." Such mad German skillz I have... anyway, after an experience like that, it was time to return to Waschwelt. The manager and the attendant were both really helpful in decoding the instructions to poor confused Amerikaners like ourselves. It was set up kinda cool, though, with this space-age central computer system. We also met this Berliner who worked for the German Foreign Service practically everywhere but Germany itself (which makes sense, I guess). Jordan and I hope that means he was a spy.

After that came a quick visit to the Berliner Philharmoniker. We found it it's located right in the business district of the city, which is LOADED with cash. An early dinner brought us to the Lindenbräu in the Sony Center, which is an ultra-modern/swanky atriumplatzdealy. Cap it off with a trip to the Berliner Dom where the organist was practicing and it was sweet. Encountering the two German mariachis along the Kurfürstendamm was amusing. Jordan and I put our heads together and decided that they'd be called alemáchis or deutschiachis or something like that.
Today marked our trip to Wittenberg, where we made several discoveries.

1. German travel trains rock. They are fast and quiet. Yay DeutscheBahn!
2. Wittenberg has an awesome restaurant specializing in potatoes called the Schwarzer Bär, which means "Black Bear." That place may be my dream eatery. And the waitress was possibly the nicest I have ever met.
3. Martin Luther really WAS on target after reading some of the 95 Theses, visiting the Schlosskirche, and exploring the Lutherhaus. I highly recommend that you read them if you haven't.

Are we really over half done?

7-19-2006: A/C is an endangered species
As I write, it's after 11 P.M. and we're bouncing along the railroad somewhere east of Leipzig. The train ride is interesting, but we'll go in order.

We overslept, checked out, and set out for a new day. Dad stayed at the hotel and devoured some more of his novel while Mom, Jordan, and I returned to Waschwelt and slayed the laundry. The bro and I helped some nice girls (with great pleasure, mind you) who seemed puzzled by the system. The one I talked to sounded maybe German, but she spoke English extremely well. Jordan helped a couple of Americans and first initiated conversation by saying, "Can I help you ladies?"* The manager was amused by all this.

*I actually have no idea what he said to the two girls, so I made that up. He did walk right up to them and ask if they needed help, but since I'm his younger brother, I reserve the right to exaggerate. And yes, the German manager really was amused.

Lunch forced us to do the unthinkable, which was eat at McDonald's amidst the many smoking cigarettes. I think I nearly choked to death on all the smoke. Then came MY first fun thing of the trip: the Musikinstrumentum Museum. We didn't even get to see all of it and we still saw more violins, claviers, and woodwind instruments than I knew existed. The coolest was probably the Wurlitzer cinema organ or the Stradivarius violin.

We returned to the Lindenbräu for some light refreshment and trekked across the Potsdamer Platz. Unfortunately we didn't buy new U-Bahn tickets and discovered what happens when you get checked for tickets and caught without the right ones. These two burly conductors looked at them, discovered they were invalid, and yanked us off at the stop by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Park. It was scary, but thankfully they didn't call the Polizei, to our relief. They then sent us on our way to the Zoologischer Garten, where we waited in the Hauptbahnhof for our overnight train.

We traveled in a car called a "couchette," which holds 6 people. We hoped the train wouldn't be full, but we weren't fortunate in that respect. A girl from Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, named Linda joined us in Berlin. We learned that Linda had been traveling in Europe for 3 or 4 weeks prior, including Spain, Italy, and Germany. She said the World Cup was absolute madness in Berlin and she actually slept in a park one night because there was NOWHERE to sleep. We also found out that the Thai baht is a weak currency against Mexico's peso and that Linda lived like a queen while traveling there years ago.

At the stop in Leipzig, we picked up our sixth rider, James, who is an English chap living in Vienna. To my amusement, he was there not for anything classical, but a techno music festival. I can't imagine what Bach would have said. Actually, he probably would have laughed. Anyway, James was friendly too. He enjoyed talking to Jordan since my brother is an American was kinda fakey-English for a year. As I thought deep down, we'd all get along in the end and have nothing to worry about. Now if only that A/C would pump harder. This weather system from North Africa is nearly unbearable.

7-21-2006: Welcome to the music capital!
Well, here we are in Wien! It still feels a little surreal; it could be the heat, but who knows. In no way at all has the heat broken, but Vienna may be a little breezier than Berlin.

As I write this time, we have visited three major locations in the city. On Thursday, after taking some very badly-needed showers, we spent the day at the Heilege Stefans Dom, admiring it in all its Catholic-ness. I really wish one of my Catholic friends could help explain everything to me, preferrably one that knows German. Oh well, Jordan's "Ugh German" gets us by. The evening highlight was a concert. Of all groups, we listened to the Toronto Children's Choir* and the Volksoper Orchestra perform together. It was a good concert, but as the family's musician-in-residence, I had a few critical notes. I could definitely tell this was a choir filled with younger singers by their breath lines and other such musical things. I was a bit annoyed at the conductor's choice of soloist in one of the pieces. His tone was weak, which made me feel either he got performance anxiety (which my music friends understand) or he wasn't prepared for a solo like this. The more major gripes I had weren't even music-related. We definitely had some overeager parents in the audience by the ill-timed applause. I also noticed this snobbish lady with an enormous nose who was staring at us. However, the worst was probably the French couple behind us who didn't shut up the entire concert. Between them and the annoying French girl on the train from Berlin who wouldn't leave us alone, my opinion of the French has only gone down.**

*When I came home, Pastor Lew said he's seen the choir perform in Grand Rapids. It may have been a little sad to go all the way to Vienna to see a Toronto ensemble, but oh well. No one THERE saw the Volksoper Orchestra.
**James (the Viennese Englishman from our train couchette) said the English have a saying when people get stressed. "They're more stressed than a Frenchman on bath day." Apparently the French aren't down with good personal hygiene. Yuck.

Today also was very hot, but the Hofburg and the Staatsoper were unbelievable. The Austrian imperials had a lot of time to acquire treasures, so their Schatzkammer was REALLY big but impressive. Only the Angela will really understand this part, but I found a cabinet holding the keys to the imperials' tombs. When everyone asked me what it was, I told Jordan excitedly, "It's a crypt keeper!" We also had a chance to gape at the world's largest cut emerald, weighing in at over 2000 carats. Apparently one of the emperors asked the finest jewel-cutter in Prague to do the cutting, who had a very dangerous task of not damaging it and keeping carat loss to a minimum. It looks to me like he got the job done. However, the sweetest verfiable item was the Holy Roman Imperial Crown, dating back about 1050 years. No can be sure that these two items are real, but we also looked at what may have been pieces from the Holy Lance and Christ's cross. Obviously the claims could be disputed, but I couldn't help feeling enormous awe and slight fear in looking at them. Suddenly the Crucifixion doesn't feel 2000 years back...

I was sad that I couldn't go inside and look around, but now I can say I've seen the Staatsoper. Jordan and I took some goofy pictures of me singing with bad form in front of it, just for kicks. Tomorrow should be sweet-it's a music day with visits at the Haus der Musik and maybe the Figarohaus. If we dodge all the Mozart-looking ticket hawkers and eat some schnitzel, the day will be almost ideal.
I miss my kittycats...