On the way to Paris

Today is Thursday. Steffi has tomorrow and Monday off.  We leave this evening for Trier, Germany which we'll tour tomorrow.  Trier has the most extensive Roman ruins outside of Italy.  They think the site has been inhabited since around 2000 BC.  Knowing that I love ruins, I'm excited to go and see what they have.  Then on Sat. we go on a bus tour to Paris, 5 hours there, spend the day and early evening, and return another 5 hours.  A very long day, but we know the bus tour driver and it is an easy way to see Paris.  I will be away from the computer until Tuesday, maybe Monday night.

I walked to the train station yesterday, one I've never walked to before, and missed it by five or more blocks one way (so ten or more blocks altogether), had to ask directions several times, finally found it.  Next time I can just get there much easier.  And I went to see Moonlight Kingdom in English at my neighborhood theater.  It has Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, and was entered at Cannes 2012.  Very interesting, odd and altogether wonderful movie.  If you get the chance to see it, I'd recommend it.  Then you'll know how really odd I am.  You'll be saying:  who recommeded this movie, and why again?  At least it isn't full of blood and violence and typical American movie-making stuff.

The t.v. news here is much different than in the US.  It actually covers almost all of Europe and America gets their small share, with very little of interest to be reported.  I wonder how we can have all the news we do in the US and almost none of it is international news.  I even saw an interview with Assange yesterday with a goup of Occupy'ers from around the world. Even the news from China, France, the Mid-East and England is pretty well balanced.

I'm walking four to six miles a day.  We went to water fitness a couple of days ago, and will be going two times a week, plus going to the gym at Steffi's work, and walking all over town.  I even had a map and still got lost.  It was actually fun.  Everyone is very helpful and nice.  Next report after Paris.

Saalburg and Hessenpark

Monday was both an US holiday and a German holiday so Steffi and two of her friends and I went on a short road trip to Saalburg and Bad Hamburg.  The 'bad' is pronounced bod, and means baths.  It is an area first developed by the Romans when they conquered Germany, as baths, as well as a stone fort at Saalburg.  There was a great museum there, showing coins and tools and shoes and a great layout of the fortress.  The Romans had built a 340 mile long wall along their western front to keep from being attacked and Saalburg was a supply station with its towers and baths.  Very impressive.  The interior courtyard is huge with gigantic trees and lush wild grass, all surrounded by the fortress' stone wall.  It was cool and peaceful, and we left as the kids were all arriving, running and shouting.  Perfect timing.  The friends have a red convertible, which I got to ride in along the autobahn. There's lots of misconceptions about the autobahn.  I had an image of four lanes of traffic all going 130 miles an hour.  Not so.  There are trucks and travel trailers and slower cars in the right lane and the left lane if for passing at a pretty fast clip, probably 90 mph or so.  Sort of like the LA freeway or even I 25 from Colorado Springs to Denver.  Because the day was so beautiful, there were lots of convertibles out. Great fun.  From Saalburg, we went to the Hessenpark which is a recreated old town with buildings open showing how they lived then, in the late 1800's, which was the same as they lived in the 1700's and even early 1900's.  Lots of folks were in costume, enacting daily life.  It was very interesting and very well done.  Lunch in Bad Hamburg under the umbrellas.  We came home early enough to miss the holiday traffic.  Today I'm having coffee and then taking a walk along the Main River.  It should be warm again today, so I walk to leave early, and beautiful.
Tonight we are going to the pool for water fitness, our first time.  I hope it's like the Y in Colorado Springs.  But of course, everything is different here.  I'll take the tram and train to Steffi's work, and we go from there.  Photos of me in the red convertible later.

Sunday walk

Today, Sunday, I walked several miles, let's say four, to the Romer Platz, so named because they discovered ruins from the Romans when they started to rebuild after the war.  The Town Hall is in the plaza and the buildings are built in the old style, however they are all built since 1945 because Frankfurt was pretty much leveled with the bombing. From there I walked to the Eschenheimer Tor or tower, one of the original towers in the wall built around old Frankfurt.  When Napoleon came here, he tore down the walls, but left several towers standing.  My guess is that most or some of it had to be rebuilt as well.  On the way back, I came upon Peruvian whistle musicians playing in a square so I sat and listened to them for awhile.  The last time I heard that kind of music live, it was in Colorado.  Probably not the very same guys, but maybe.  They get around.  It was nice to sit and rest before crossing the bridge with the locks and coming home.  It's lovely here, mild and oh yes, it is still light at 10PM, they have a long twilight.

Heidelberg Castle 2

Heidelberg Castle May 2012

Yesterday, Saturday, Steffi and I drove 1.5 hours to Heidelberg to see the castle.  It is the most beautiful castle of all I've seen.  We toured in interior rooms, the courtyard, passage ways, towers.  The castle has a moat, now dry of course, houses the world's largest wine vat or cask which is several stories high (round).  We ate lunch at the outdoor restaurant overlooking the courtyard, sitting in the sun.  Other castles I've seen have very stark looking buildings, this one is baroque and the most important Renaissance structure north of the Alps, ornate, and decorated.  First built in 1214, it was occupied until the 1700's. Over time the buildings decayed ( thanks in part to two lightning strikes and subsequent fires) and to me the most spectacular sites are the walls with empty windows, with the sky showing from behind, maybe four stories high or more.  There's a huge round tower which a chunk fell off of.  The artist, Turner, painted numerous paintings of the ruins and Twain wrote about it. Once it was uninhabited, the residents of Heidelberg began taking the stones away, as if it was a quarry, until a poet- artist came to the castle, named Wolfgang Muller von Konigswinter, who argued for the restoration of the castle. Later a French count, de Grainberg, oversaw the beginning of the preservation. The citizens in the town below stopped taking away the stones, and slowly it was put back together.  The castle is 260´ above the town on a hilltop, and for us to get there, we climbed a staircase of 303 steps ( fifteen or so stories) , and then more steps once inside.  So today, Sunday, it a real day of rest for me.  I'll probably take a walk along the river later today, but it's overcast and may rain.  No shops are open on Sundays, nor tomorrow which is a religious holiday. No shopping until Tuesday.  I have everything I need.  I've attached photos on the next couple of pages.

Photos here and there. May 2012

Photos from Prague I think, except the last on is in the apartment.

Yesterday we went to the gym at Stfffi's work, and today I walked the 6 or 8 blocks to the bookstore, and picked up the book he ordered for me yesterday, The Magicians by Lev Grossman.  Beautiful morning, mild and getting warm, easy walk.  The proprietor smiled at me, disappeared behind a shelf and returned with the book in his hand.  I almost cried.  It was like being handed the golden apple or some such.  A jewel perhaps.  A key to a door.  It cost 7.9 euros.  I slipped it in a small blue plastic bag and walked back home.  Or maybe I floated home, high on getting something to come into my life with no idea how to make it happen, and then it did happen.  Tonight Steffi, Dani (her partner), my grandson Travis and I are having dinner at my apartment and then walking into the Romer Platz part of town across the old bridge and along the river.  All the white blossoms on the trees and turned dark and are falling, leaving all the great green leaves, slowly going into summer.  See me smiling here at the computer.  :-) I am happy.

None of the stores are open on Sundays, so today is the day to buy groceries.  I walked the 5 or 6 blocks to the store and got fresh veggies (asparagus is REALLY in season) and a jar of pickles.  Before we left for Prague, at the bookstore in the Frankfurt train station, I found this great book, The Magician King by Lev Grossman.  Wonderful magic and fantastic writing.  He's written two others, The Codex (first book) and The Magicians (second book).  But how to get them?  Can't get Amazon to deliver to Germany. Next to the Rewe Market is a small German bookstore.    I step in, three German guys sitting around.  I say Hallo. One gets up, I ask if they have books in English, and he shows me a section.  Mostly thrillers, but I got another author, Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear. (can Rothfuss be his real name?) The owner speaks a passable English so then I asked him if he could order books for me?  Yes, he can.  We look up on the internet the Grossman books.  Yes, he can, and will, order them.  One comes in tomorrow and one in 10 days.  Life is good.  A way to get the books I want.  So I'm finishing up The Magician King.  It's one of those good books that you want to devour but you make yourself go slow so as not to finish it and have nothing. Now I can finish it.  Things fall into place.

Scenes from Prague, last one is Steffi sleeping, gives an idea of our hostel bedroom there.  Cobbled streets hurt my knees.  It was beautiful thought.

Better shot of the green steel supports on my favorite bridge. Note barge going by below.  Boats go up and down the river all the time.  Some have folks eating dinner on them, some look like house boats with a car on the roof, and some look like commercial barges with cargos. 

Photos at the botanical garden on Mother's Day.  

This is one view from Steffi's apartment out the apartment window.  In the middle of all the trees are the supports for a bridge.  They are made from green steel, with gold and red suns in the top apex.  Very art deco.

This is a museum within walking distance of Stfffi's apartment along the Main River.  It was closed for remodeling the day I walked across this bridge to see it.  Note the external stairway that goes from an exterior door on the second floor, to an exterior door on the third floor.  There's no railing on the stairway, not a very safe way to get from one floor to the other.  Intriguing building, I'll try to post other copies of it.

Today is Saturday, the 19th. We got back from Prague last night around 10PM. A mix of trains (From Frankfurt to Nuernberg for 2 hours) then a luxury bus on to Prague for 3.5 hours. Very comfortable. Lots of forests where the trees have black trunks and the spring leaves are brilliant green, or skinny pines that reach high and are almost to thick to walk through. Prague is a beautiful city, the buildings are decorated unlike any I've ever seen, narrow cobbeled streets, very hilly. We stayed in a hostel, which means a private room, shared bath and kitchen down the hall. There was a restaurant attached, and breakfast was included. We ate both morning and night there, and stopped for coffees and pastries a couple of times a day, or had a brochen sandwich at an outside cafe with red umbrellas and colorful cushions. Almost everyone speaks some english, or German, which Steffi is fluent in. We toured that rightly-so famous Prague castle, walked across the also famous Charles bridge, took an underground tour of old Prague. Seems in the 1200's they built a moat around Old Prague, and used all that dirt to cover up the existing city, and built new buildings on top. The cobbles are had on my knees, but once I figured that out and quit walking on them, my knees got better. Today, home in Frankfurt, I made the best pot of coffee ever, and put the laundry on. The coffee in Prague, not so good unless you get a 'real latte', which we had several of. Otherwise, they call it a latte, but it's really bitter mud with pale milk. And it's been on the stove all day. But the Czech beer is wonderful, just not for breakfast. Everyone drinks bottled water both in Frankfurt and Prague. It's all mineral water, and either is fizzy and carbonated, or not, which is called 'still' water, meaning no bubbles, that's the kind I like. Everywhere you ask for water, you get a small bottle of water, no tap water although it's ok to drink I believe. Just no one does. It was raining when we got into Frankfurt last night, but no rain on the time in Prague. I saw a house where Kafka lived for awhile. #22 on the Golden Lane. Tiny place, maybe 10 X 12 or so, that includes all the rooms, or rather one room where everything happens. Tiny bed, small table and two chairs, a hook for clothes. Small.

A beautiful day sunny and the sky that perfect blue that occurs in the spring. We went to the botanical gardens. There are huge glass buildings filled with exotic plants growing with spikes and spines and swisted roots above ground. I tried to capture the brilliant blossoms with my camera, but we know that the eye sees one thing and the camera sees another. When Steffi shows me how to post pictures to my blog, you can see what I mean. We ate at the outdoor restaurant there, coffee and pastry. It was great to sit in the sun. Steffi says they have lots of gray days here and the sun is valued. So we turned our faces toward it, and probably got a bit sunburned on our faces. I'm getting bettter at riding the trains, keeping my direction which isn't all that easy when the trains are underground. You have to read the signs carefully and keep your wits about you. The tulips in the windowsill gave out, but today Steffi brought me a lovely bouquet. We made a reservation for Prague Wed. and Thurs nights and tomorrow we're going to the train station to see if they have any deals to ride the train to Prague. If they don't have deals, we'll drive instead, leaving Wednesday afternoon. It's twilight now, the lights are coming on, illuminated the bridges, relfecting in the river. It's great.

May 11  Day 5 I think.  Yesterday, my oldest grandson, Travis, came to the apt. and took me to see where he lives in Bornheim and where he works at the movie theater as cashier and projectionist.  We had coffee and a pastry in a nearby shop.  Very nice.  I last saw him 5 or 6 years ago.  He is tall, with dark hair and dark eyes.  He brought me chocolate cake.  Then in the afternoon, Steffi came to get me and we went to the Hale and Farewell for the outgoing Counsel General of the Consulant.  A lovely event under tents with food and drink.  They also gave Steffi an award for Manager of the Year, and remarked about her bravery in the rescue of the soldiers who were attack last year at the Frankfort Airport by the lone gunman.  She took the company van and went to pick up the survivors of the attack.  She was also sited for that last year but they always mention it when she's receiving an award.  Today we have an Employee Appreciation BBQ for her employees in the afternoon.  it was in the 80's yesterday, but rain forecast this afternoon.  We will have to play vollyball in the rain perhaps.  Everyday is a new adventure for me.  I am loving it here, settled in nicely, quite comfortable.  We may drive to Holland to see the tulip fields.

Today, Wednesday, it is raining.  Not the kind that comes down the windows is streaks and smears, but the kind that is in the air everywhere at once.  So everything is shiny and clean.  I can see the Main River from my window, with graceful bridges, some old and some new.  The one directly out of the window is made of green steel, with art deco designs on the tops of the supports, made of gold and red, that look like a sun with rays coming off it.  Beautiful.  Can#t get the t.v. or stero to come on this morning, so it's also very quiet.  I usually walk along the river about 45 minutes each morning, so perhaps soon off to do that.  I made coffee, and have my favorite Hazelnut creamer, so life is actually quite good.  There's a vase of red tuplips in the window, and three roses in another vase.  Lots of good light in the apartment.  I am learning to ride the trains, use the keys, make coffee, and cook.  Everthing is just different enough that it takes a bit of learning how.  Steffie and I went to the movie last night and saw The Best Marigold Hotel in English at a charming theater within walking distance.  When we got out at 9:30, it was still faintly light for our walk home.  Tomorrow afternoon I am going to an event for Steffie#s Manager of the Year award with dinner, and Friday we are going to her business' Employee BBQ and vollyball tourney.  Just to advise you, dear Readers, I am using Steffie's laptop and the y and z are swapped places.  I try to catch the errors when I make them, but some may slip through.  Bye for now.

First full day in Frankfurt after a 10 hour sleep last night.  We had coffee and watched the Mein River flow past.  TodayI learn how to ride the trains, where Steffie works, how to get to the grocery store and the drug store, how to work the tv and stero, how to use the stove, run the laundry and such.  Some of it is intuitive, some not so much. The weather here is much like Colorado Springs, with the trees in blossom, and the sky full of smears of clouds, coming and going.  I think rain is forecast tonight maybe.  Steffie was off yesterday and today, we walked on the Riverwalk and went out for hamburgers for dinner.  Tonight we will cook something lite at home for dinner, and go to the Elglish movie theater, to see the Marigold Hotel movie. Life is good, let's say Yes!!!

We'll I'm on my great adventure and have had my first miracle.  I arrive at the Colorado Springs airport at 4AM.  It is deliciously dark with a fat full moon.  There's about a dozen people in the airport, check-in goes well, my luggage does not exceed the fifty pound limit.  I sigh with relief.  My boarding pass, issued at the check-in counter, says gate 9 at 6:10AM.  I slowly meander to gate 9 with two hours to go.  I walk the airport for an hour, so that I don't sit too long, buy a water.  Check out the stores.  Resist buying coffee.  Around 5:30 I am standing at gate 9, where it shows a flight boarding for Houston.  OK, so when they finish boarding the flight to Houston, they'll post my flight to Washington.  There are about six of us still sitting at Gate 9 when the flight is finished boarding.  I look around, there's a big crowd at Gate 12, so around 6AM, I wander to Gate 12.  I squint to see it says Washington on the board.  I ask a guy at the back of the line, if this is the flight to Dulles.  He says yes.  I show him my boarding pass and ask if it is my flight number.  He says yes.  I get in line behind him, the last person on the flight. What if I'd gone to gate 10 or 11?  It was a MIRACLE.  To celebrate, I buy a cup of tea and a  Tapas box for $8.95 for breakfast on the plane.  On my flight !!   It had cheese spread, brochetta, olives, almonds, three kinds of crackers (two without wheat), hummus, and a wet wipe.  I am in heaven.  Then I curl up against the window and sleep on and off for the next hour.  I am one very grateful woman.   I have a four hour layover in Dulles.  Some folks on my flight had ten nimutes to make their connection.  One woman was crying.  If I'd missed my flight in the Springs, I would have been crying as well.  But no, for some reason, I wandered over to see what was happening at Gate 12.  Pretty exciting so far. 

Today I put money in the bank, to later be withdrawn in Euros, and cut out pictures of the German landscape, Ireland's west coast, and Petra, for my journal.  Still need photos of Paris, perhaps tomorrow.   Taking my watercolors, and paper for painting, pencil and sketchbook for drawing, camera for photos. I think my big  suitcase is packed, still working on my carry-on.  Things feel ready.  I hope no one ever has to deal with Century Link.  I've tried for three days to get my account set up for an automatic payment, they are antiquated and arrogant about it.  Rude customer service people with three different stories about how it will work.  I've been with them eleven years (really, I was with Qwest) but when I get back I'll look for another internet/land line provider.  Very frustrating.  all the rest were great and easy to deal with.  What's life without a few bumps???