Vicki From Vegesack: Part II

Saturday

Downtown Bremen, the Schnoor, bibelgarten, Jacobs picnic, shopping and little harbor festival walkthrough, Werder Bremen wins!

There you go. The succinct summary. Now I’ll take you through it…. Backwards!

Werder Bremen, la lalala. Late into the night there were literally singing in the streets, horns honking, men shouting. Their beloved soccer team, who as far as I can tell is called the “green/whites,” won the Germany Cup! Sounds like a big deal good thing for the fans of fussbol and it was. The celebration was rowdy and hearty. Elizabeth and I joined in by downloading the Werder Bremen song on youtube. It was all the support we could muster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzVbgkizKfE

I went to the grocery myself and only had to ask for one thing to be translated! They have some kind of deutsche card I did not understand… thought she might be asking debit or credit. However the 18 year old German girl spoke better English than I do so other than my usual embarrassment all was well. I found everything I was looking for and even translated nutritional comparisons.

We had a nice trip through downtown Bremen which of course centers on the two churches, the Frauenkirche and the Domhof (one for the general public and one for the higher classes in the old days). We ate lunch on the square, and although the picture looks a little gruesome, I swear it was the best baked potato ever slathered with a “kraeutercreme” sauce… some kind of chivey-parsley spice that was great. Everything comes with the most interesting salads, and they don’t even advertise them.

During lunch a man began to chant something very loudly (he must have majored in voice projection somewhere) on the square. He went on and on. At first we thought he was some sort of tour guide but he seemed to be very repetitive and, frankly, I could not figure out even what language he was speaking using, let alone what he was saying. Eventually the police came and hauled him away. The lunch crowd cheered.

In a courtyard of the Domhof, the major church, was a Bibelgarten, where 120 varieties of flowers and shrubs mentioned in the Bible, are planted. Each is labeled with its name and a mention of the bible verse where it is mentioned. The flowers were of course beautiful, as all flowers are here and, really, it has to be said, everywhere else where flowers are. Do I ramble?

Back to the tour.

The Schnoor is the oldest quarter in Bremen (c. 1000) with the tiniest medieval “streets” I’ve seen anywhere. There was one area where I had to turn sideways to get through (yes, I’ve put on weight, but this was inordinate!) We looked in a couple of shops and met my new boyfriend Heinrich, see photo below. He was known as Happy Heini because no matter what he always was determined to be happy. Unfortunately, he will never know of his status as my new boyfriend because he died several years ago at the age of 90+. The town loved him so much they put a statue near where he lived there in the Schnoor.

The Jacobs picnic-festival was to celebrate the end of the year. The theme was 1960’s hippies but not everyone seemed to have received the memo and those who did had some mighty erroneous info about the hippies. However, since the students represented countries as various as Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, the US, Germany, El Salvador, etc. I figured maybe there were different interpretations of the term in different parts of the world. Elizabeth received an elaborate temporary tattoo and we vamoosed.

Shortly thereafter came the aforementioned shopping expedition and on the short walk back to the Blue House I found a tiny area by the harbor where there were food booths and a merry-go-round. Fun! Took some pictures of the harbor/Blue House from the other side and then back to rest. Sleeping is fun and peaceful here… but of course last night we got to vicariously party with the wildly enthusiastic Werder Bremen fans returning at the Bahnhof that is less than fifty yards from our house. Alles Gut, we learned a new song!

Sunday – Monday-Tuesday

Church. Brunch. Rest. Goodbye pizza party at Blue House. Overnight train to Munich. Hostel, could not check in yet. Wander to information office and buy hop on hop off tours. Ride four times to see all the sights, hop off in Marienplatz, walk to Hard Rock Café/Hofbrauhaus. All shops closed due to Pentecost. Elizabeth purely miserable with allergies, in search of Apotheke! No map for me. Final day walking tour.

Church at Jacobs U involves a touring priest (who had a Mass-in-a-rolling-suitcase, hopefully with all appropriate luggage blessings) and about fourteen participants. Including us. Elizabeth was roped in the first week to do setup and readings, and an admirable job she did. “I had to go to church! They would surely have noticed if the altar was not set up or the readings were not read, wouldn’t they?” Clever Father Matthew.

Met more of Elizabeth’s friends and had lunch at the Servery (these Germans go in for fancy names) which is the main cafeteria. Outside we had a lively discussion about movies and other trends (participants from Slovakia, Mexico, El Salvador)

Then back to the Blue House for a little rest and a goodbye pizza party, Tons more kids (although Elizabeth takes offense since many of them are post doctoral students and up to maybe 35 years old. Still. Kids.) And a BABY! Who was very placid for being among so many people speaking so many languages and varieties of English.

Caught the late train from Vegesack, the section of Bremen where E lives, to the main Bremen station, to Munich. Tried to sleep, but really. The “pillows” built into the seats were hysterical. They looked like someone had one of those things you are supposed to inflate to use in the bathtub, ok, not shell-shaped but you get the idea, and then someone let 7/8 of the air out. No point to them whatsoever and they made a lump behind my head that was really not so helpful. What are they thinking? Anyway, not much sleep ensued which was sort of not good since the plan was to sleep on the train, wake up refreshed and see half of Munich, rest at the hostel (my first! And my first top bunk, not a pretty thought… or sight, I am sure) and then gad about the next day as well. We did follow the plan, but whoo were we tired.

Not to mention Elizabeth had a severe attack of allergies which necessitated a trip to an Apotheke. This ordinarily would not be such an adventure worth sharing with our faithful blog followers, since Apothekes are about as numerous in Germany as Starbucks in any major American city. However, today was, you guessed it, Pentecost Monday, when all shops are CLOSED. We eventually discovered, when she was down to her very LAST tissue, that there is an emergency Apotheke in every city! Joy! Cheers! Rapture! We hopped on our hop-on-hop off bus tour and hied our way hence to the part of town where tissues were to be found. (Guess I did not mention the lack of Walgreens or 7 – 11s, huh?) Also Elizabeth found her favorite herbal remedy, Gelo-Myrtol, which she had been planning to stock up on anyway for her return to the states… best thing ever for a stuffy head she says. It was a happy moment!

And followed quickly by Elizabeth’s excellent navigation (Rude daughter’s comment to loving affectionate albeit directionally challenged mother: “No map for YOU!”) that landed us smack dab between the Hard Rock Café and the Hofbrauhaus. More Joy. More Cheers. More Rapture! For those who don’t know, HRC is a destination in any city Elizabeth visits. Long story involving the Flintstones, not appropriate here, but funny. Ask me sometime.

Anyway we had a lovely American lunch there and sadly, PEPSI, not Coke, but with ice cubes AND ice water! Very nice.

Oh. You wanted to hear about German sites, not so much about respiratory distress or lunchtime? Ok.

So the hop-on-hop-off was sort of cool. Because of the tissue crisis we hopped off at some critical juncture that ended up requiring us to circle the city four times to see all the sights. Therefore we heard the interpretations of four different guides. Funny how statistics seemed to change! But we did get to see all the sites and walk around most of the major ones. The old town hall is of course newer than the new town hall, since it was rebuilt in the 1960’s after some major WWII destruction. Ironically, the new town hall (built c. 1900) was built to look older than the old town hall (built c. 1400) in the first place and even though the rebuilt old town hall was built to recreate the original it does look newer than the new one. Got all that? Still with me?

It was interesting to discover that there were only four kings of Bavaria in its history, one of whom was Ludwig II, the mad king that built Neuschwanstein, the castle that was the model for the Disney castle. But the first king had most excellent taste and built some incredible places with a Grecian look. And the second king built a wonderful castle for his wife after she gave him, yes, an heir to the throne. In response she built a church to thank God.

So now to the hostel. Good to try. Once. Not horrible. But the imaginary sight of me climbing up to a top bunk probably tells you all you need to know.

Back to Bremen we rode.

Wednesday
Elizabeth’s across-the-hall neighbors Behnam and Behrang (please pronounce the “h”, it’s important to them and they deserve the attention to detail) cooked us the most superb Iranian lunch! Two kinds of meat (chicken and lamb) lots of vegetables, three kinds of rice! Delectable. And they are very kind and thoughtful young men. We had a very good discussion about the state of the world and their country and our country and I think if everyone could eat that lunch and then discuss things we’d all be a lot better off. At the end we discovered that Behnam had had oral surgery and needed stitches removed so he had done all this in pain! Then he left to go to the dentist and returned for more conversation, holding an icepack to his face! What a guy. They have been very good friends to Elizabeth, and I am so glad she got to know some wonderful people from a place where we might tend to think of everyone as “the same” and with an attitude we don’t like. These two were men I’d be proud to have as sons, brothers, or any other kind of relative or friend.

Elizabeth packed. I read another book!

Thursday
Cooked all day. It was quite relaxing since I had no worries about laundry, grants, dentists, bills or anything else I could resolve at the moment. Made mom’s famous chicken and wild rice casserole, green beans, salad, and served it all up with crusty rolls, apple juice, wine and (oops, surprise, even to me, alcohol free wine!) and of course Coke. Dessert was a disappointment. Unfortunately I used what I thought was a prepared pie crust for my reasonable facsimile of apple pie, but it was more like a doughy cookie. Not so good. Sad. The apples were fine though.

Dinner time came and 10 of Elizabeth’s friends joined us around the table at the Blue House. They are a remarkable group of young people I am so glad to have had the chance to know. And when my chair broke out from under me (!!) they hardly guffawed at all. Well a little bit. But Behnam and Behrang sprang to their feet to help me, and they all were very kind. Got me a new chair and we proceeded. They loved the casserole, Mom. Great recipe… although I needed to substitute a couple items not available at a grocery near us, it turned out just fine.

After dinner, the friends of Elizabeth claimed items she can’t bring back to the States. Some of them can’t carry their items on the bus or bikes at night so they will revisit tomorrow.

To cap off the night, packing. Yawn.

Friday
Leaving day. Got up at 6:20 am to deal with checking out of Elizabeth’s room at 7. They guy never showed up! Guenther and Annemarie are on the way and called to give instructions for packing for a trip to their vacation home in Langerroch (sp?) So we repacked!

Blake, Kate and Adil came to claim items and we shared Elizabeth’s last döner experience. It is a day of very mixed emotions for her, but she is ready to move on. And now, I need to get this posted before our ride appears and we lose our internet connection. More as possible in the days to come.

Love,
Vicki

Pictures from our great journies!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82227&id=558866732&l=073c6a7ddc