Gute Fahrt!

Six years later, we meet again.

When I last saw my South Korean (Texas-native) roommate, Stacey, I didn’t expect I would next see her in Germany – a baby, I expected, but not the location. But as the sign in her entranceway reads: “Home is where the Air Force sends you”. She and her husband Ben have been stationed here for nearly four years and baby Gemma was born here. Unfortunately, Ben was ‘down range’ (military base-speak for 'deployed to Iraq'), so we didn’t get to visit with him. The main purpose of this trip was to hang out with Stacey and to meet Gemma – of course, since we were in a new country, we saw and we consumed new things. The weekend was a greatly relaxing rotation of drinking, eating, touring and drinking... This is Tom’s favourite trip style: sampling local cuisine and brews, and I learned to appreciate it, too.

So, the relaxing part came in only once we arrived in Stacey’s latest hometown, Landscheid-Neiderkail. Before that was the mad dash to the airport and the absolute chaos of RyanAir. We were on a tight, but manageable schedule (or so we thought). We missed our bus from downtown London to the airport, although that turned out to be a good thing: in rush hour, it is likely your hour-plus bus ride will take double the amount of time (and more because it’s raining heavily) and we hadn’t factored for that kind of contingency... ok, new plan: to the train! We jumped on the tube and headed for the express/expensive train to Stansted Airport. Stansted is where most budget airlines operate, but it is in the middle of nowhere (read: in a galaxy far, far away) and we’ll be rethinking flying from there again...

This was our second RyanAir experience – the first being our trip to Italy (that Italy blog post is a bit elusive, but I’m sure it will make its way up here one day). We were slightly more mentally prepared this time for the frenzy and the madness. RyanAir's no-assigned-seating cost-saving measure turns people into animals. So, you need to try to get in line early to get seats together and that usually fails as you are often just lining up to get on a bus that takes you to the plane. Needless to say, you lose all priority on this bus. Once you find a seat, it takes forever to take-off as people have not obeyed the cabin luggage requirements and there does not seem to be enough room in the overhead storage. This results in flight attendants cursing under their breath (and out loud, because this is RyanAir and service-with-a-smile is not part of the budget package either). The plane is mostly RyanAir-yellow inside and Tom is convinced this contributes to added passenger agitation. The public address system is used to air commercials before departure and this shameless solicitation continues throughout the flight with the attendants constantly hawking everything from the usual duty-free to raffle tickets and smokeless cigarettes for use on board! (End of rant)

We flew into Frankfurt-Hahn airport – about as close to Frankfurt as Stansted is to London, but the closest airport to Stacey. It was 11pm Friday night and we were about to have our first European driving experience. It only seemed appropriate to rent the most compact car possible to embark on a classic (movie-version) European road trip. We had an immature laugh at the ‘Gute Fahrt!’ (translation: Bon Voyage!) printed on our rental receipt. We then found the Smart car and had another laugh at its decal decoration. After familiarizing ourselves with the car and a quick review of our international road signs pamphlet, we were off.

Google directions are only good if you don’t get lost. I printed a bigger map for just such an eventuality, but this does not help when there are no signs... We stopped at a gas station immediately (!) after leaving the airport to be sure we were going the right way only to get back in the car and go the wrong way. Once we got turned around, we made it to Stacey’s without any more directional mishaps. This was not without much second-guessing along the way as Google does not describe in-between stages such as tunnels or crazy switchbacks if you are technically on the same unlit, rural highway. All the same, Tom was happy to be driving on the autobahn, even if we could only go 97kph with the gas pedal pinned (ok, we were driving uphill at the time). Admittedly, it was a fun experience and had the side effect of roundabouts finally making sense. We woke Stacey up somewhere close to 2am.

The next morning, we breakfasted with a more-awake Stacey and met Gemma whose hair was tied into a little fountain atop her head. Gemma and Tom made fast friends. Six years of only sporadic correspondence didn’t seem to affect our rapport and there was really an ease to seeing each other again. The day was wet and cold and, according to Stacey, this was typical German weather. She is looking forward to the heat of their next posting in Las Vegas (I didn’t think anyone actually lived in Vegas, but apparently the desert is a great location for F-16 training exercises). Thankfully, it wasn’t snowing; I had ignored several prompts for the snow-tire ‘extra’ during the online car reservation process, but I was really starting to wonder...

Stacey lives in western Germany, right near the Luxembourg border. We discovered that she also lives close to Bitburg, home of the Bitburger Brauerei, so Tom was disappointed that he hadn’t brought his Bitburger T-shirt (free with a case of twelve at the depanneur). Germany’s oldest city is also close by.

Trier was founded in 16BC, and has Assyrian and, more famously, Roman origins. Those omni-present Romans made Trier the western capital of the Roman Empire in the 3rd-century. We visited the incredibly well-preserved and monumental Basilika - Emperor Constantine’s throne hall. It is known by the slightly convoluted distinction of being the largest surviving single-room structure from Roman times. The 2nd-century Porta Nigra is an ancient Roman fortified gate and Trier’s signature landmark.

We wandered through the narrow streets of Trier at a leisurely pace and through intermittent rain. We stopped in front of Karl Marx’s birthplace and quietly took in Trier’s 1600-year old Cathedral. This Cathedral houses Jesus’ “Holy Tunic”, hidden from light and our view; this is the robe Jesus was wearing when he died (although records date only to the 12th-century...). After seeing countless holy relics in Italy, Tom wonders if there is some grand register somewhere keeping track of all their claims. We found a cafe near the Hauptmarkt, the town centre and medieval market, and indulged in some crepes and apple strudel. Before heading back, Tom got a bratwurst (fried sausage) to go.

We stayed in that evening and raided Stacey’s wine cellar / converted bomb shelter. She served us some local Riesling. Looking around her house, I found it overwhelming to imagine the logistics involved in moving lives and households around the world.

On Sunday, we all piled into the Price is Right car again and took a drive through the sunny countryside (on their way home from Korea, Stacey and Ben stopped in Los Angeles to see the long-running game show and Ben became a contestant. They also won snowshoes which would have much better use on a visit to us in Montreal than sitting in a garage in Las Vegas! This is an open invitation.). WWII Germany and divided Germany histories were not at the forefront of my mind on this trip, although Tom confessed that he couldn’t help thinking about them. On our way through Dudeldorf, though, the war became more real and present as we saw deep scars inside the city gates purportedly caused by General Patton’s tanks as they passed through after the 1945 Battle of the Bulge. Less sombre were the rolling hills of the Mosel valley cultivated with vineyards.

We lunched at the Kloster Machern abbey brewery along the Mosel River. I sampled the schnitzel (breaded pork) while Tom tried the sauerbraten (vinegar-marinated beef). Of course, we all had a pint of their home-beer (except Gemma). Stacey then took us to the 700-year old town of Bernkastel. The town still retains much of its medieval origins and well-conserved, half-timbered, colourful houses surround the town square. Unusually for a Sunday, the town was lively due to a visiting French market. Tom and I stopped for an eiswine probe (which has nothing to do with alien autopsies, but means ‘ice wine tasting’). We strolled around the cobbled streets, romantically overlooked by steep hills of vines and castle ruins. Strangely (?!), no one was wearing lederhosen. We couldn’t resist one more strudel before leaving.

Another condition of flying RyanAir is really inconvenient flight times. We said our thank-yous and good-byes to Stacey and Gemma, and made our Smart-way back to the airport for an 11pm flight. Tom slept on the bus into London hoping to compensate for our ultimate 3am arrival... Next week, Tom visits the Christmas markets in Aachen, Germany with a group of 13-year olds in his charge. They leave at 9pm Thursday, drive all night, shop (and supposedly practise German – this is the educational part) all day Friday and get back on the bus to return home – no hotel. Somehow, our travel plans seem less hectic now.

And, a quick note on my visit to Queen Elizabeth II: last week, I capitalized on my ‘lady of leisure’ status (term given to me by a recruiter who hasn’t managed to find me a job) and went to see the Queen on a Wednesday morning. There is great pageantry associated with the State Opening of Parliament. The Queen travels from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament to deliver a speech announcing the program for the new Parliamentary session (prepared by politicians and a big (?) 7 minutes long this year). She is preceded by a procession of military bands, fuzzy-hatted and rifle-toting soldiers and horse guards, and delivered herself in a horse-drawn coach. Guards lining the street form the Royale Salute as she passes by. Loyalists and tourists alike crowd along the route to see her. A middle-aged British man beside me bade her a respectful “God bless you, M’am”. I am increasingly watchful that my European experiences not be viewed solely through my camera, so I took a good look at her and then tried to find her with the lens. The result is that a horse nearly blocked her completely in the photo... (click on it for full-size image)

Canterbury Tales

On this day of celebration of the (thwarted) attempt to blow up Parliament, I present to you Canterbury and other tales of English plotting. With my sister visiting, weekdays became tourist days again and we took a day trip to this medieval city (while poor Tom worked...).

Canterbury is inextricably linked to (hi)stories of various insecure King Henrys murdering various righteous Saint Thomases. The city was established much earlier than these kings and saints by the Romans in the 3rd century, and Roman St. Augustine arrived 400-years later to convert the pagans and found Canterbury Cathedral.

Cathedrals are unceasingly amazing in the way they contain space and the sheer amount of space they contain. With this being my reaction in the modern world, imagine a 12th-century pilgrim arriving in this space... As always, my favourite place is the cloister. I can’t help but think the world would be a much less stressful place if only everyone had access to one.

Today, of course, Canterbury Cathedral is the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion and home to the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, when I naively asked the audio-guide clerk if the Archbishop might be in, she told me that he resides in more-happening London and only comes on special occasions. An Archbishop more in evidence was Thomas Becket.

Thomas Becket was murdered in the northwest transept of the Cathedral in 1170. A floor stone bearing his name and contemporary, macabre swords pointed out the location of his gruesome demise. Four knights of King Henry II apparently mistook the king’s venting over Becket’s defiance as a direct order to kill the archbishop. His canonization occurred three years later after countless miracles attributed to his blood (including bringing people back from the dead!). Similarly countless pilgrims made their way to Canterbury to visit his shrine and their treks became the context of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

The location of Saint Thomas’ shrine is now marked only by a lit candle and the path of stones worn down by pilgrims. It was destroyed / looted by Henry VIII in 1538 to end the pilgrimages and assert the unquestionable authority of the monarchy. Remember this Henry for later, too.

Enclosing the Cathedral and the Old Town are the remains of the city walls and their Roman, Norman and medieval elements. The Old Town is a mostly walking tour kind of place and we visited on a steady-rain kind of day. Nevertheless, we persevered, wet and somehow still enjoying ourselves, along the City Wall Trail. We wound our way down narrow streets and past time-warped, crooked houses, and read historical anecdotes from our increasingly moist guidebook. Despite the rain, the town was picturesque in fall colours. A wonderful find was the Greyfriars humble refectory spanning the ironically tiny Great Stour River. The rain did, however, lead to a photo shortage as my camera stayed buried under my jacket most of the day.

We took a side-trip outside the city walls to visit 1000-year old St. Dunstan’s Church. This church purportedly houses Saint Thomas More’s head in a vault beneath the floor. A few years before destroying the first Saint Thomas’ shrine, King Henry VIII beheaded his trusted advisor, Thomas More, for refusing to recognize him as head of the Church of England. More’s severed head adorned a pike along London Bridge for a month and then was thought to have been retrieved by his foster daughter and buried in her vault here.

Rainy twilight in the cemetery of the oldest church in England is not the ideal weather, time nor location for an overactive imagination, but that is where I found myself, amidst the gravestones, wondering where my sister was. I thought she was right behind me and she, apparently, didn’t know where I went... I suddenly had twigs in broken tombs morphing into skeletal hands... We managed to find each other and even bravely set about looking for some grave marker indications of St. Martin’s 6th-century origins.

The rain stopped in time for us to catch the train back to London.

Suz has since returned home and I am slowly sifting through the 1500+ photos from our Italy trip. The Fates compensated our one day of rain in Canterbury with seven sunny, beautiful days in Italy. That post will have to wait until we get back from Landscheid-Neiderkail (near Frankfurt) – this weekend we’re visiting my old roommate from Korea who’s living there now.

Postscript: The TV Licensing Enforcement Division finally came by yesterday for their surprise inspection. He stepped one foot in the door, barely glanced around and removed us from their hit list!

And, cheers again to Guy Fawkes for the brilliant and deafening light show out my window - it’s been a week of amateur, back-garden firework displays culminating in tonight’s extravaganza.