Fernweh

The Emerald Isle

2009-03-26T15:25:00.011+01:00

The months of February and March have been packed with trips: first Vienna, then the Baltics, and after that, a tour of Hamburg and Berlin with some buddies of mine studying in

England

. It’s been hard to gather my thoughts and difficult to prepare for the next destinations - although it’s become easier to live out of a backpack, wear dirty clothes, skip showers, and fall asleep anywhere I'm forced to. But I risk having these trips blend together, and the last thing I want is to get jaded by the travel experience.

Ireland

was the last “big” trip for a while.

The flight had been booked in December. I was a little reluctant at first, since St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin is teeming with tourists. But I gave in. Our Dickinson crew and German friends attending split into two groups. My travel group was made up of 3 German girls and two American guys, Drew and I. We'd be staying for 7 days, equally split between Cork and Dublin. Our German friend Insa worked as an au pair for a year in Cork, so she could navigate the narrow, wall-lined roads and accomplish the formidable task of driving on the left-hand side.

We arrived in Dublin in the late afternoon and immediately set off for Cork. It was already twilight and the sky was decked with low-hanging, pall-like clouds moving fast across the sky. The landscape was something I had never seen before: gnarled yew trees laden with bright green moss and tangled bushes of gorse on fluffy, green grass. And that equally surreal landscape of dark gray clouds swiftly passing over our heads. It was eerie, and I thought to myself, this is the stuff all those books and movies, legends and myths, are made of, where they take place. Oooohhh! But then I looked at the busy highway before us and remembered we’re in 2009 in the Western World.

We stopped in a tiny town called Abbeyleix (pronounced “Abbeylegs”) at an Italian place, where we experienced our first encounter with Irish charm and friendliness. The owner of the restaurant was half-Italian, half-Irish, and extremely funny. After joking and talking for a while, he showed us pictures of his children – that’s something that just doesn’t happen in

Germany

, or really even in the

U.S.A.

, for that matter, unless being chummy will get you a good tip.

We decided to try out couch-surfing while in Cork. The creator of couchsurfing.com intended his website to be a means for travelers to network with one another, so that travellers can find places to stay with hosts willing to show them a bit of their country to learn about their guests'. Our hosts, Fergal, Kevin, and Ruaíri picked us up from the bus station. They’re great guys, genuine, authentic, and friendly. We drank, went to a crowded pub, played board games, ate Irish breakfast together, and just chatted. They took us around the city the first day, where I was able to ring the famous Shandon Bells of the Shandon Church, and Ruaíri gave in and took us to Blarney Castle, “the most overrated tourist attraction in

Ireland

" - hey, I had to do it, and to see the ruins themselves was worth the 10 euros.

The gang and I woke up early one day and took a drive along the southern coast, passing Ross Castle on the way to the Ring of Kerry, a series of roads on the southwestern coast and home to some of the most beautiful scenery in Ireland. We passed wide stretches of farmland, moors, lakes, beaches, rocky outcrops, rivers, woods, sheep crossings, mountain passes, farmers burning gorse...it looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings. It's amazing how photogenic this country is.

Before we made our way back to Cork, we stopped in the charming town of Killarney, where I toasted my dad with Bulmer's and Guinness. We really accomplished a lot on this trip in terms of sight-seeing. Although my back never felt more aligned, it was good to leave Cork knowing that I'd have a bed and would be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour. The couch-surfing experience was great, and I definitely learned a lot about the country, but I think from now on I'll draw my couch-surfing limit at two nights.

On the way to Dublin, we drove along the coast, passing by tiny towns and beaches, where we drew lewd pictures on the sand and explored coastal caves. We ate our soda bread, digestive cookies, and potato salad on an outcrop overlooking the sea. Toward the end of the journey, we all got a little bit ansy, especially after a wrong turn down a country road and almost hitting a dog. But, we made it to Dublin alright and, after convening with the other Dickinson who had already arrived (they stayed only for 3 nights), we went right to bed. Suffice it to say, we slept well.

The next day was St. Paddy's Day, so we all went into town. Our hostel was located on a side street with lots of Asian restaurants running perpendicular to O'Connell St., the main drag. We all bought some cheap souvenir green clothing for the parade, and, after realizing I looked like a ridiculous American tourist with my baseball cap and green hoodie, I bought an even more asinine leprechaun hat with a built-in beard. The streets were packed, most of them tourists. No matter. We lined up behind rows of intent onlookers to watch the parade. A brass band led the procession, but the step-dancers and pipe bands were missing. The parade was more of a Cirque du soleil knock-off than anything. However, the parade - and the whole St. Patrick's day hub-bub itself, for that matter - is a recent addition in Ireland after American tourists began to question the absence of festivities in the city. It caught on

Three of us decided to split and eat a lunch outside of the Temple Bar area. It was decidedly cheaper, too. It's amazing how expensive things are here. You'd expect a country to be a bit cheaper after those centuries of English occupation and that whole potato famine incident. But a toll ticket costs 3 euros and a pint at the local pub hits the 5 euro mark. The country's pretty well-off overall. There are large homes, replete with palm trees, dotting the countryside and a large immigrant population, the most well-known of that group being Poles.

The rest of the trip was spent on exploring the city. I skipped over the 11 euro Guinness factory tour, which was okay since I don't like the beer, as well as the 10 euro Book of Kells exhibit, which was okay, too, since only two pages are on display. I didn't see any good dancing (just a Riverdance knock-off) or any of those spontaneous "trad" music sessions, but I did catch the "Bodies" exhibit (a knock-off of the BodyWorlds exhibit in the States), theNational Museum of Archaeology, which houses the largest collection of Celtic art, as well as lots of the sights from the James Joyce novels.

It was a great trip. I didn't have to work too hard (my wallet did that for me). Although the cities aren't gorgeous, the countryside is, and the genuineness and the charm of the people really made you feel like you really were on vacation, relaxed, even at home. Wherever I go, I always ask myself the question, "Could I ever live here?" So, could I ever live in Ireland? Definitely!

Adventures in the Baltics

2009-03-02T17:27:00.030+01:00

I.
It's been a while since I last posted, but this entry is the beginning of more frequent posting on this blog.

Bremen had gotten stale. The lousy, rainy weather of late-February gets on one's nerves and is not very inspiring for writing blog entries, I have to say. The wonderful free trip to Vienna with my college crew did nothing to prevent the rain upon my return to the Hanseatic city on the Weser. So, my trip to the Baltic states was a much welcomed respite. I travelled with my friend Morgane from France, who I befriended at my immersion course in Bayreuth in September. After a trip to visit an immersion course friend of ours in Bitola, Macedonia in January, she has become my default travel partner, and, after our week of gluttony and sloth in the Balkans, we promised ourselves a week free of that crap and a nice "cultural" trip. We were going to visit two more of our friends in that tiny, icy corner of the world next to Russia. I didn't really know what to expect. The words Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia don't exactly conjure any distinct images in the American mind, maybe just a indistinct blob on a map or some vague association with the Soviet Union. But I was determined to find out more about these places.

Upon arrival in the Rīga, Latvia airport, I quickly noticed how different the people looked. Gorgeous blue eyes - a dark, pure shade of blue you'd never find elsewhere. Our friend Latvian friend Santa - yes, her name is Santa (it means "holy" in Latvian) and she, too, had those gorgeous eyes - picked us up from the airport. We paid 40 santimes (around 80 cents) to the fare collector on the bus and rode into the snowy city. Even from the very beginning, I could see the scars of past Soviet occupation: pretty baroque and neoclassical buildings stood side-by-side with worn, brutalist architecture, while a charming stone bridge decked with wrought iron lamps straddled the Daugava River along with a partner, an ugly, rusty steel job. But the prospect was thrilling, the ability to see an area of the world (especially in Europe) still relatively unscathed from hordes of tourists and globalization - the sterilization and dilution associated with the new global economy is slowly setting foot in the country with its admission into the E.U. in 2004.

In typical Maddu-Morgane fashion we booked the hostel the day of departure, but luckily, we caught a good deal. The old owners of the Argonaut's Hostel had been replaced, and the Latvian- Ausrtralian-owned hostel was providing rooms for 4 euros a night. Not bad. And they offered tours, pub crawls, bobsledding, and trips to the an old Soviet police-training bunker, where you can shoot AK-47s - a "must" in Rīga that I should have taken advantage of. We made our way through the pretty, elegant city to Santa's music conservatory, a small, classically styled building trimmed with chandeliers and columns. Although the plaster was split in some places, the building was a testament to the city's heyday - the city of Wagner and merchants. The Music Academy quickly became our meeting spot and, in the small world of Rīga and the even smaller one of the Rīga Conservatory, Morgane and I quickly became "celebrities."

Santa gave us a little tour of her city after lunch. Rīga is home to two charming, sloping parks, a street with the largest concentration of Art Noveau architecture in the world, two medieval guild halls (which look like something out of Disneyworld), and a host of music venues, like the Rīga Opera House, where the world-renown Rīga Ballet performs (Mikhail Baryshnikov studied there). After the debut concerto of the Rīga Saxophone Fest (one of 40- or 50-some music festivals per year in the city) in a church, we convened Čili Pica, a pizza place which, next to Double Coffee, is one of the many successful Latvian restaurant chains in the Baltic region and the restaurant Morgane and I frequented most often. It was a nice, calm start to a cultural trip, a respite from bad weather (although Rīga was white with snow) and a chance to discover something totally new. We were going to eat at the market the next morning. The hostel attendant warned us to be careful of our wallets. After crossing a bridge to the market's part of the city, we could understand the attendant's suspicion: housed in a barrack-like complex shadowed by a looming, old Soviet radio tour next door, crowds of people shuffled around, many of them poorly dressed, many of them guadily so - a stark contrast to the expensive clothes in the stores and the well-dressed inhabitants of the Inner City across the river. Bundled-up elderly people left desitute by the break-up of the Soviet Union and recent entrance into the E.U. begged at the corners or pawned cheap trinkets on the corners, along with wreaths of ferns plucked from the abundant trees outside the city. Santa said that few Latvians actually frequent the market. It's a predominantly Russian area. Although Latvian is now the main language, around 50% of Latvia's population is of Russian origin with many college-aged students able to speak both languages fluently, and it is in areas like the market where the Russian language is still frequently spoken. I sensed a little hostility in her voice in the subject of Russian-Latvian relations, so I pushed no further. Although the two groups coexist peacefully and both groups have friends on either side, I got the feeling that the language issue was still a little "iffy." And regardless if the market was "Russian" rather than "Latvian," I wanted to see it because that's where the life is at. Little old women with lace crowns, parts of animals I'd never known existed, milk straight from the countryside poured into returnable bottles, cheap and delicious cakes, smoked fish, kafejnīcas - everything was so lively. There aren't places like this anymore, even in rural Western Europe. You have to find this bit of the Old World here in places like Latvia. That's soon to change, I assume, so it's best to catch it all now. But the history of the country has always been in flux and a visit to the Occupation Museum tells that story. Although it only focuses on the country's history from the beginning of Soviet occupation to the present day, it hints at the Latvian people's whole story of subjugation throughout history. Visitors like Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth II have left their remarks in a book dedicated to the experiences of the museum's visitors, now witnesses to the rocky history of an ethnic group continually swept under the rug by the Germans, Nazis, Soviets, and finally the world in today's age of economic and political Juggernauts who leave no room for a small country like Latvia to leave their own mark on a global consciousness - despite the fact that the country probably endured more hardships than any other in the mid-twentieth century, losing one-third (over 500,000) of its native population to the Soviet gulags and Nazi concentration camps. However, the country has remarkably retained a sense of identity, particularly in the folk culture. I was amazed by the customs and rituals that have remained throughout the years. Bride and groom are married decked in foliage and the dead are still buried in the woods, while the midsummer festival of Jāņi is still devoutly celebrated with ancient songs (dainas) and bonfires. The Latvian language itself is one of the most ancient continually-spoken languages, whose closest relatives are Lithuanian and Sanskrit. A thin veil of the contemporary has and continues to cover an identity with roots in the country's pagan past outside written history, even through times of hardship.

Later, we met Santa's producer friend Uģis, the reason behind our five or so free tickets to the already cheap Saxophone Fest concerts. He invited us to sleep at his place and, naturally, I accepted the offer. However, he had a cat, so I stayed up all night coughing, sneezing, and wheezing (so, I stayed at the hostel the next night). He lived in an old, Soviet style apartment with peeling flowered wallpaper, creaky floorboards, and a gaudy chandelier. It's fine for a bachelor pad, but in comparison for similar priced apartments in Germany, for example, it's too expensive for the poor quality. Different standards of living. Apartments in the Old Town start at 100,000 euros for a small studio. Living isn't cheap here, as would be expected of a former Soviet bloc country. It's not cheap for business either, according to a Latvian-German entrepreneur I met on the plane. He said it was cheaper to build up a business in Germany than in Latvia. The standards of living and the ridiculous price for it are just some of the outcomes of the country's decade-long adaption to democratic statehood and entrance into the E.U. and NATO. The situation is further exacerbated by the recent financial crisis, and the country of 2 million people, already cancelling several parliament sessions to save money, is said to expect the toughest times out of any other E.U. country this summer.

II.
On the third day of our trip, Morgane and I took a four-hour, 20 euro bus ride with Eurolines to Vilnius, Lithuania. I knew next to nothing about the city. At least I did a little research beforehand for Riga. All I knew about Vilnius was that it was once a prominent city in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a few hundred years ago and has since fallen into relative obscurity - well, at least in terms of world capitals. But the trip into the "unknown" was pretty thrilling. We awoke relatively early and had the pleasure of witnessing the pulsing, orange sun rise through the thick pine and fern forests on the flat landscape - it stopped only a little ways over the horizon, the highest point it would be that day.

The bus made its way through the countryside and forest, passing through small towns on the way. The archtecture was considerably different than in Riga. Not only did it exhibit a more "Polish" style, but the packs of decrepit Soviet aparment buildings toward the city's edge juxtaposed those of its Baltic neighbor. As usual, Morgane and I booked our hostel the day of departure, but, unfortunately, neither one of us was smart enough to print out the directions. After Morgane spoke in French with a secretary (English is not as widely spoken here as in Latvia, and definitely not as well as in Estonia), we were directed to a woman in the Eurolines office who printed out our directions. We took a rusty bus (most likely an old import from Western Europe) to a bus stop at the edge of the city on a hillside. Suffice it to say, the situation caused me to question the accuracy of the directions, and the hostel's location in a residential neighborhood and sketchy housing arrangements led me to question the hostel's commitment to service. Although the bathrooms were not up-to-par and the bedrooms too small (especially when shared by a middle-aged, Russian couple), and despite the water being too cold and the housekeeper Milda rather mean, it sufficed, for we spent the entire day in the crisp, sunny outside.

We set off through the neighborhood toward the inner city on a snowy path which crackled under our boots. The residential architecture was so beautiful - that is, when the owners kept up with the maintenance. Rectangular cabins and tall, two-storied farmhouses decked with ornamental wood dotted the way, colorful buildings I'd only seen in movies and historical books.

Morgane and I did not have a game plan for that day, and, and, since we would be there only for a day, we spent the day exploring. Vilnius' Old Town is a city relatively "untouched" by the tourist industry. So, we were able to see things most people in Western Europe and North America just don't see anymore. Outside a Russian Orthodox cathedral, we witnessed pious old women bowing, crossing, and genuflecting at the gate and church door. It was a gated church community. A nearby Roman Catholic church holds a gilded portrait of the Black Madonna, visible through the glass window of The Gate of Dawn (Aušros Vartai) or the Medininkai Gate, a chapel that straddles a pedestrian street. Old women, dressed in old-fashioned but classy frocks, marched silently up the rotting wooden staircase, leaving candles and flowers at the foot of the portrait. I've never seen such pure religious zeal. There were no fits of glossalalia and militant testifying on some Baptist pulpit. The calm and serenity of these women's pious devotion was beautiful. The inquiring looks Morgane and I received from both the Orthodox and Catholic pilgrims made me feel like an outsider, a disturbance, someone intruding on something that has been going on for centuries.

Vilnius is a city of churches. There are 60 some, and the majority of which are Roman Catholic, but there are a decent number of Russian Orthodox and Protestant ones. The large number of places of worship color the skyline of the Old City, a terraced group of towers: onion domes, spires, and the crowned cupolas of brightly colored churches of the Polish Baroque style grace the undulating hills.

After stumbling upon a market, sampling foods that tasted like the Polish food I ate as a kid, Morgane and found a restaurant and ate. In every place we went to, the inside was just as cold as the outside. As the day waned and the sun set, we decided to gather our thoughts in a Double Coffee (they exist in Lithuania, too), the nearest cafe we could find, to gather our thoughts and write in our journals. A couple behind me were speaking in German. It reminded me of the many French tourists I had seen that day. It seemed that the city once called "Babel" for the hodgepodge of languages spoken there is beginning to make a comeback. The downtown of skyscrapers, which we unfortunately didn't see, makes even more of a mark on the skyline than the spires of the Old Town. We made our way back to the hostel shivering, and enjoyed a calm night.

III.
After a calm busride back, we spent another peaceful day in Riga. We met Santa at our meeting spot, the conservatory, and ate there again (cheaply and well, of course). We spent the sunny afternoon at the Ethnological Museum, located on the border of the city. Although the bus stop was difficult to find, we managed, for I really wanted to take advantage of the nicer weather and do something outside, preferably in the forest. It's an open-air musuem with preserved traditional buildings. One detour led us to a house occupied with vendors and their wares. Greeted by an old woman asking, "Russki? Latviešu? Deutsch? English?" we were charmed by her anecdotes about her merchandise, and impressed with her language abilities. I bought a rattle said to ward off demons. It was made of bull rush from the neighboring lake. A wooden country church preserved from the 1500s, wigwam-like traditional outdoor kitchens, and countless farmhouses occupy the thick pine forest. It's amazing to think that many of these farmhouses, mills, and barns were in use only 100 years ago, and, according to Santa, many farmers still live like they have been living for centuries. It was a little eerie to see something so ancient, especially in these ancient pine woods spliced with the waning yellow sun
.
Before we saw another concert with Santa and Ugis, we bought tickets to see Delibes Coppélia at the world famous Opera House. Although I had to stand since there were no more seats left, I only paid about 4 euros, which, compared to the crappy seat I garnered in Vienna for 38 euros, it was a steal. It was a lot for one day, but I managed to gather myself for the next journey: Tallinn, Estonia.

IV.
We left early for our two-night trip on a four-hour bus ride for a whopping 15 euros. Although at the start of the journey arI felt that Tallinn wouldn't be as beautiful as Riga, I was entirely mistaken. It has one of the best preserved medieval towns in the world (and possibly one of the most beautiful), and the economy seems to be faring better here than in the other Baltic countries I had visited. Large, modern homes on large lotsare sprouting up everywhere (Aigi said that Estonian people like to live apart from one another), while companies like Skype have made there home in this burgeoning tiny economic power of 1.5 million inhabitants. Aigi herself sports a new Audi, worlds different than the commonplace Opel and Škodajalopies scuttling around on Latvian and Lithuanian streets. She was at the bus station to pick us up, greeting us with postcards with funny-looking, old Estonians on them and tour books of the city, each in our respective mother tongue. We'd be learning about the city together. For a country willing to pay for one of the most expensive public toilets on record (around 2 million euros - it's a long story), the economic situation isn't too bad off for a former Soviet bloc country. The people's English skills were also fantastic. Even old people could speak relatively fluently. Although it's not the best gauge for a country's economic success, it's still a testament to Estonia's education, what seems to be yet another step above the other two countries.

The English language also plays a part in politics and the identity of the country. English is a language used not only to communicate with the outside world (Estonian, as a Finno-Ugric tongue, is related to Finnish, andhas sounds I never knew one could make; it's spoken only by 1.25 million speakers, less than the population of the country), but also as a neutral meeting point for the Russian minority and Estonian majority. Perhaps the Latvians and Russians living in Latvia "get along" more easily since their populations are almost equal, but in Estonia, tensions still run high as the Russian-speaking minority, 20% of the total population, vie for the right to speak their language and keep Russian-speaking schools - a major problem in the country now as a nation, whose peaceful people used song as a coping mechanism for the hardships of Soviet occupation, trying to grow from a former Soviet republic to a democratic E.U. and NATO country while living next door to big bully Russia - a similar story in the other Baltic states. It's terrible, Aigi admits, to have this tension between the two ethnic groups. She has Russian friends who really would love to learn the Finnish language, but, once you start talking politics, they're not your friend anymore.

We spent the first day and night exploring the city. The city is full of charm and quaintness. I hate to compare, but I think I like it better than Riga. Aigi says that Latvian people tend to like Tallinn better, and Santa's own statement seems to reaffirm that. Because we arrived on the Monday before both Shrove Tuesday and Independence Day, most stores and museums were closed. However, we did manage to catch sight of the prime minister, surrounded by guards walking into a building in the park. It's not such a spectacular sight, seeing that most everyone in the city knows one another. We spent the remainder of the day chatting in charming cafes and in fancy wine bars, all decked out with chic decor and comfy couches - these joints seem to be as commonplace in Latvia as dirty pubs are in Ireland...and they're definitely cheaper.

The next day, Shrove Tuesday and Independence Day (both coincidentally occuring on the same day this year), Aigi and her boyfriend, Ivo, picked us up to do some traditional Finnish sleigh-riding in Tallinn's outdoor Ethnological Museum. A sled consists of a small wooden chair on metal slats, designed to be pushed from behind. They're common almost everywhere in the Baltics and are still frequently used in the Estonian countryside. I ate traditional cream puffs and pea soup, and Ivo taught me how to make and play with a traditional Estonian toy, the "vurr," named after the noise it emmenates from the spinning pig bone on a tensed string.

Because the two had a car, they took us for a ride into the country. They were happy to show us around their country. Our first stop was a waterfall, partially iced over, where brides go to give up their old name and take on a new one. Our next stop was a decaying manor house. Ivo's grandfather was actually caretaker in the house's heyday. Ivo inherited his grandfather's keys as a kid and would play around the big, old house. Unfortunately, he lost the them.

Sipping the Estonian equivalent to kvass (a non-alcoholic malt drink), we made our way through the winding highway surrounded by a forest of pencil-thin pines. My hosts' began to tell hear stories of their families. Aigi's family was originally a wealthy land-owning family, complete with their own farmstead and chateau in the countryside. When the Soviets came into power in the 1940s, many of her relatives were murdered simply for being rich, and the rest were sent off to the gulags of Siberia. Ivo's family's story is similar; his relatives were also killed and deported. Sadly, it's a common story in Estonia, and the country is still coping with its sad past.

After roaming around the grounds of a pretty yellow chateau, we spotted horses along the side of the road. There was no one at the farmstead, so we couldn't ride that day. But they were gorgeous, a breed I had never seen before. The night closed with a few drinks in a classy establishment. We were sent off with the liquor Vana Tallinn and Estonian chocolates. What a classy couple. Classy city, too. But I was left remembering thinking about some remarks Aigi said about the old Soviet style apartment buildings she showed us on a tour of various neighborhoods in and around Tallinn.It seemed like she absolutely loathed the buildings. She was very excited to show us the large modern homes being built - imposing cubes of white stone and glass, the futuristic likes of which could never be seen even in the States. But her hope that these apartment buildings - which mainly house Russian tenants - would someday be demolished is indicative of the present strife between the two ethnic groups, the country's place and adaption to today's world - and how this country is dealing with its sordid past.

V.
The next day was also relatively calm. We didn't want to spend too much money, so we didn't drink or eat to much. We saw another free concert with our friends and spent the day and the following morning in reflection. I definitely learned a great deal about this "little icy corner of the world next to Russia." A world unto its own, as cliche as that sounds. In every city I noticed how the locals revelled in their ability to recognize people on the street. They're cities where politicians and celebrities mingle with milk merchants. Most of the tourists we encountered were of Eastern European origin, travelling the old roads and train tracks tread by the Soviets. And local customs still remain and have remained in a rapidly changing world and militant subjectors. Each city exhibits the influence of its previous captors: Riga-Germany, Vilnius-Poland, Tallinn-Finland, the wax for the moulds of bigger, more powerful countries. But under the surface, there is an identity burning just as brightly as the others. But I fear what the globalized world will bring. Identities priding themselves on the preservation of tradition under centuries of submission may give way to the dilution and sterilization of the globalized world.

???

2008-11-23T19:58:00.003+01:00

After watching a close Werder Bremen football game at the bar Meisenfrei, I shuffled over to a nearby Döner place (for those of you who don't know what Döner are, firstly my apologies, and secondly, they're the German equivalent - actually Turkish-German since they're originally Turikish and only Turkish-Germans own Döner restaurants - of hamburgers or cheesburgers: pitas stuffed with lettuce, tzatziki, and lamb, chicken, beef, or all three, shaved off a rotating, greasy spit of meat, left out in the open). I naturally ordered a Döner. The Turkish man at the counter asked me if I was Mexican. That's like the fifth time that's happened to me in Germany. Hey, whatevs. I just find it curious, since I have no Mexican ancestors whatsoever. Am I that swarthy? I wonder what image these people have of Mexicans. Dunno. Yep. I'm going to digest my delicious Döner now.

Close Encounters of the SCA Kind

2008-11-18T23:25:00.004+01:00

On the way to the bank today I saw on the S-Bahn a bald man with a ponytail piecing together chainmail with pliers. That is all.

Jever

2008-11-09T22:47:00.000+01:00

My first blog post, finally. I apologize to those who've been expecting something from my two months (so far) in Germany. So let's get started...

I'm studying this year at the Universität Bremen (the subject of another upcoming post), the city of which is located in northwest Germany near the North Sea and surrounded by the province of Low Saxony (Niedersachsen; Bremen is it's own provice/Bundesland). Part of the perks of being a student at the Uni Bremen is that you get a "Semesterticket," your student i.d./Studentausweis, that covers train fare with all non-ICE trains (so, basically, just not the really fast, swank ones) on select lines around Bremen, Hanover, and Hamburg. On Saturday, my friend Faye and I decided on a whim to take advantage of the card and take a ride to the nearby town of Jever.

In the heart of East Frisia (Ostfriesland), this village of 13,000 has a blustery history of constant swapping between Denmark, Oldenburg, Russia (who woulda thunk), the Napoleonic vassal state the Kingdom of Holland, Germany (of course), the Frisians, and, most importantly, to the people of Jever themselves.

We left around noon on a crisp fall day, and the train ride, despite having to switch trains twice there and back, was nice, since the flat, marshy farmland landscape dotted with vibrant birch copses provided plenty of Kodak moment-worthy views.

After a short train ride (1:30 hrs.?), we arrived. My favorite places to travel are those relatively untouched and, although Jever is far from exotic and not even remotely provincial (the houses in town bear testament to the fact that these people earn their living in the big city), the piercing quiet of the town on a Saturday afternoon and seeing everyone (if they were even out) going about their daily business in such a setting was really refreshing.

We headed through a neighborhood to get to the Glockenspiel and Schloss in the main part of town. The Glockenspiel, which plays quite frequently throughout the day, pales in comparison to München's and larger cities', but it still nonetheless is worthy of interest: five figures stumble out, representing 5 past rulers of the town, two of which are of special significance to the people of Jever: Edo Wiemken and Fräulein Maria, two of the last Häuptlinge (chieftains) of Jever (c. 1550), before Jever was once again tossed between different rulers for the next few hundred years. There's a statue of the Froiken (Plattdüütsch/Niederdeutsch/Low German, the language once, and in some instances, still is spoken in Ostfriesland, for "Fräulein") in the town square.

Right next to the Glockenspiel was the Schloss, a gorgeous residence whose construction began sometime in the 1400s and finished in its present pink Baroque form in the late 1700s, now holds a "mildly diverting cultural history museum," to quote Lonely Planet. They're right, though. Nothing special, and the out-of-place exhibit covering the history of Germany's club scene was a little unnerving. Nonetheless, it was kind of interesting and the park next door was awesome. Is it normal for there to be wild peacocks? Because we totally saw wild peacocks and a host of other strange birds. Sadly, we have no pictures :(

After a stroll in the park, we hit up the really only other attraction, the Stadtskirche, which, unfortunately, had burnt down quite a few years ago. Now, there's a really ugly modern church beside the old steeple. We walked inside and heard a lady singing "Oh Happy Day" with

a thick accent, accompanied by piano and bongos. It was strange, but the preserved ornate grave of Edo Wiemken with an ornate wooden canopy was pretty baller.

We skipped over the Jever brewery because A) it was to late, B) we already had too many brewery tours, and 3) it frankly isn't the greatest beer in the world. After supping and warming up in a cafe, one of the few open so late on Saturday, we hit the road and said our Auf Wiedersehens to the pretty Frisian town, which sadly is "am Arsch der Welt" (on the ass of the world). Nonetheless, I think I may have a little crush on the tiny town.