(May 26-27, 2005)
Marburg is a lovely old town in Hessen. I did my study abroad year in Marburg, at Philipps-universität. Marburg was one of the seats of the Duchy of Hessen-Kassel. Cool things that happened there: Philipp called a meeting of Protestants during the Reformation, and they argued for a while. I don't recall if any resolutions were reached. The Brothers Grimm studied at Uni-Marburg.
Our journey to Marburg was delayed by taking the train in the wrong direction, but we got there eventually. It was also a holiday (Ascension Day), so all the transportation was on reduced schedules. We stayed in the Art-Hotel Tusculum, very near downtown and the cool stuff.
The university was founded in 1412 or so. Back then, scholars were associated with the church, and Philipp of Hessen was protestant, so it's a Lutheran church. The Spiegelslustturm, also known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm Turm (tower), has a really amazing view of the city. Well, mainly of trees and hills, but it's lovely.
The second day, we walked up to the castle. The road to the castle is steep. It's very up. I'm glad we started as early as we did; waiting until afternoon would have killed us, I think.
We eventually walked to the old Botanical Gardens and sat there watching ducks and a heron until it was time for dinner. We were mainly killing time until Hinkelstein opened. It's a bar in an 11th century basement, so it's cool year round, though it gets kind of dank and smoky. It's a really nifty place. Any visitors to the area should go there.
(May 25, 2005)
Rothenburg ob der Tauber is the only city in Germany with its entire medieval wall intact. Though it's not the original wall... but I'll get to that later. I'll also get to the why part later.
We stayed in a converted old house on the former high street. We had one night there, so we decided to go for the luxury hotel, rather than the super budget places we'd been staying. The bathtub area is what I'd like to do with our bathtub at home.
Rothenburg has a famous Christmas market every year, and a store devoted entirely to Christmas decorations that's open all year, and is attached to a Christmas museum. Kitschy doesn't even come close. If it weren't for the horde of tourists, I'd try to go to the Christmas market someday.
As you may have guessed, most German cities have some sort of food or drink they're famous for. Rothenburg has snowballs: pie-crust-type dough formed into balls and baked, then covered with sugar or a glaze. They're quite filling, but not as sweet as most Americans would expect.
We went up the tower in the town hall. Going up the stairs was fine, but then there are these progressively smaller and ricketier stairways, and at the very top, to go out, you have to climb a ladder. Holy crap. That was creepy, but the view was amazing enough to make it worthwhile.
Now, a history lesson: Why Rothenburg still had a wall, when everyone else didn't.
In the 1400s, it was at the intersection of 2 major trade routes, so they were very prosperous. But the 30 Years' War threw them into poverty, so they couldn't afford to tear down the wall like all the cool cities were doing. Then in the mid 1800s, various artists went to visit and described the quaint charm of the city, which attracted tourists of all varieties, which brought a renewed prosperity, which nearly ended in 1945. But we'll get to that in a bit.
We walked the entire perimeter of the city. On one side, they never built a walkable wall, because it didn't need defense because of the steep incline to the river below. For that section, we walked along the footpath next to it, either inside or out.
History lesson number 2: Why the wall isn't all original.
A Nazi general had fled from Nuremberg to Rothenburg, and the US Army
was hot on his heels. They were bombing the city and all, and the
general left. The US Army had orders to turn the town to rubble, but an
American commander whose mum had been a tourist in Rothenburg before
the war knew what a cool place it was and called the guy on the front
and said, "No, don't destroy it. Give them a chance to surrender."
Fortunately, the Nazi general was out of town, because High Command
said no negotiations with the enemy. A Rothenburger met an American
soldier and surrendered and allowed occupation to occur, and they were
saved. But about a third of the old town was ruined, along with much of
the wall. The town was broke again, so they made an advertising
campaign to "all people who love Rothenburg" to sponsor a segment of
wall. So when you walk along the wall, you see plaques with people's
names or businesses or clubs, schools, and groups, who donated money to
restore the wall and the town (which is prosperous once again, thanks
to tourism.)
All historical information is from the Night Watchman tour. If you're ever in Rothenburg, I highly recommend it. He's fantastically amazing.
(May 20, 2005)
Neuschwanstein was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria around 1860. He was obsessed with Wagner and Germanic folklore, like Siegfried and Lohengrin the Swan-knight. Ludwig died, under mysterious circumstances, before the castle was completed. Shortly thereafter, the state of Bavaria opened it to the public, because Ludwig had bankrupted the treasury to build it. He even had another, more ornate castle in planning before he died. Both it and Neuschwanstein were designed by set designers, rather than architects. It is currently one of the most touristed spots in all of Germany.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his oddities, Ludwig was a very popular king. He was handsome, but he never married. He was briefly engaged, but they ended the troth. Modern Germans are entranced by Elisabeth (Sisi), empress of Austria-Hungary, who was kin to and a dear friend of Ludwig.
Neuschwanstein is easily accessible by train from Munich. You have to catch a bus in a little town called Füssen, which is nestled in the Bavarian Alps. The region was already loved for its beauty and hiking before Ludwig built his castle there. Another castle, Hohenschwangau, is at the foot of the mountain. I believe Ludwig I built that one.
There are several ways to get up to the castle. One is the basic road, which you can walk up or pay to take a horse carriage. Another is through the Gorge below. We took the Gorge road back. It was steep, twisty, and intimidating at times, but incredibly beautiful.
(May 19-22, 2005)
Munich was our second stop. It's the capital of the state of Bavaria, and the former seat of the royal family of Bavaria, the Wittelsbachs. The Residenz was in use until about 1920 as the royal domicile; now it's museums.
We arrived at our hotel too early, so we deposited our bags and went walking through the city.
The St. Michael's Church was built by a pious king, but the tower was destroyed nearly immediately after its completion. The king thought St. Michael destroyed it for being too small, so he planned to build it bigger. Thankfully, it never happened.
The Rathaus on Marienplatz is fairly world-famous. It's got the Glockenspiel in it, which hourly sends painted figures jousting and dancing, followed by 10 minutes of bell music. Gaudy, to be sure, but it sure draws tourists.
We found lunch in the Viktualienmarkt, along with a few of the obligatory decorated lions (the Wittelsbachs' symbol, so quite prominent throughout Munich).
After we ate, we walked back to our hotel and rested a bit, while deciding where to go for dinner. We picked La Fiorentina Trattoria Pizzeria Cafe, which had fabulous pizza, as was recommended in Let's Go! Then we walked back to the hotel, stopping for ice cream on the way. There was a donut stand outside the train station, with cute little fresh donuts, but we never bought them. They smelled really good, anyway.
The second day, we took a day trip to Neuschwanstein.
Then the third day, the weather was perfect, so our goal was to spend time outside. We walked to the Altstadt, then to the English Garden, which is really an extension of the garden at the Residenz. It's quite huge, considering it's in the middle of a good-sized city.
There are signs posted that say "do not swim in canal -- danger of death!" The surfer guys ignored them, but the cops didn't do anything about it. German society isn't nearly as litigious as the US. They figure, signs are posted, and if they're ignored and someone gets hurt, it was their own damn fault.
We just beat a terrific hailstorm back to our room. I don't believe we actually ate dinner that night, aside from some chips and leftover rolls, perhaps.
The next day, since it was rainy, we went to the German Museum and looked at all sorts of old steam engines, ships, including a whole U-boot, and old computer stuff. They also had a hands-on chemistry section and a wing devoted to pharmacy and medicine, so we both got to geek out. Yay. Then on the way back, we stopped at an Indian restaurant, which had tasty shahi paneer. It was gorgeous. We picked up dessert at a bakery on the way, because we were too full to consider eating it then. It thunderstormed again that night, just on and on. It was pretty cool, actually.
(May 17-18, 2005)
Tübingen was the first stop after our arrival in Germany. We flew into the Frankfurt Rhein-Main airport, which is ridiculously huge and has a very convenient train station inside. After validating our railpass, we hopped a train to Tübingen.
Tübingen is an old university city in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south of Stuttgart. We chose it because the travel book said it was less touristy than Heidelberg and just as cool. I've been to Heidelberg a couple times, so we decided to go somewhere I hadn't been.
Our hotel was nice, but rather far from the train station. Because we couldn't figure out the busses, we walked the 30 or so minutes. After we got there, we showered and decided we weren't going to die, so we walked back into town, through an old park and past the university.After we ate falafel sandwiches from a restaurant called die Kichererbse (the chickpea), we looked for the place people were getting ice cream from. It was absolutely wonderful Italian gelato. After that, we wandered around in the old town and took some pictures. We also stopped in a bookstore or two.
Breakfast in German hotels usually involves a variety of breads, cheeses, cold cuts, spreads, and strong coffee. Sometimes they also include muesli, yogurt, and juices. This one included the latter. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, the weather on the day we went out to the castle was absolutely horrible. It was cold (about 55 degrees) and rainy. That put a bit of a damper on our planned walking things, but we did it anyway. Just got really cold...
The upshot of the weather being shit was that we decided to pay the couple Euros to see the Duckomenta
exhibit at the castle museum. It was absolutely brilliant. They
replaced historical artworks with Donald Duck. Some were modern pieces
made to resemble historical ones. The website has many of them on it,
but not all.
Eventually we wound up in the old town again. We had some delightful crepes from a vendor on the market, then ate dinner in our hotel. A lot more food than was expected, and combined with the beer, it was pretty sleep-inducing.
Our hotel had a most interesting shower. It was retrofitted into a bedroom. Many German homes have sinks in the bedroom, so inserting a shower wasn't too hard. You had to turn on a pump to drain the water through the sink drain. But it was less expensive than other places, so I'm not complaining.
The only things I missed were the British pop culture/place references, because Laurie uses alternative descriptors that probably any Londoner would catch.
Also, it has more dry British self-parodic wit than Terry Pratchett can shake a stick at. The language is not translated into American for the audience on this side of the pond. I don't think, anyway. Some of the observations he casts about Americans, especially the military ones, aren't flattering, so if you get offended by damn furrners not believing the sun shines out of the US' collective ass, I'd advise against the book.
In short: clever spy novel semi-parody.
A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer. 310 pp. 1st ed 2005. (Not adding the book to my library, because I sold it to a used book store.)
This book purports to be science fiction, but it's really a romance novel. I also couldn't help reading it with a jaundiced feminist eye.
For some reason, this society is a matriarchy. For some reason, male children are rare, so groups of sisters share one husband. When they have a brother, they can sell him or trade him to another family so they can get themselves a husband. They keep men in hiding, protected, and they veil themselves in public on the extremely rare occasions they venture forth. There's probably some sort of parallel to be drawn with older Islamic customs, only backwards. And it's not really feminist, because they still treat men like gods, though the men do all the "women's work," like cooking and raising babies.
Anyway. The setting is very Wild West: the women all carry rifles and pistols, and there are husband raids. I never figured out how it was science fiction, though. Except possibly that it's speculative in the "what if men were rare and women were in charge?" part, and even then it falls short, because it left more questions unanswered than answered.
There's some political intrigue here and there. One early matter is dropped entirely to the wayside and never resolved. The political intrigue isn't even all that good. And the missing sister's identity is obvious to everyone except the main character.
The romance aspect isn't even all that good. It's repeatedly whacked over your head, in a "telling" rather than "showing" fashion. Then again, the glowing commentary from Catherine "jewel-tone trees and lavender sky" Asaro on the cover should have been a glowing red warning sign. (Had I looked at a larger image of the cover before buying, I would likely not own it. Though the description *sounded* interesting.) Then there's the obsession everyone has with babies. It's a hallmark of romance novels, apparently.
As an SF novel: D-
As a political intrigue story: C-
As a romance: C+
The narrator tells her story, revolving around her school days and her two closest friends, Ruth and Tommy, and how their lives intertwine after they leave Hailsham. It's disjointed at times, but not distractingly so: it has a definite feel that Kathy is telling you her story, addressing you as one of her peers -- another student/carer/donor.
There are hints that the outside world is different from today's and that there are larger things afoot, but they're not really explained until the last about 25 pages. The world outside isn't described in too much detail -- the focus is on Kathy and the other donors -- but it doesn't suffer for it. This world is very like the world we know, but with people bred solely to donate their organs and the ethical debates surrounding it. That is not what this book is about. It's hinted at, at the end, what the outside world thinks and is like, but the reader can come to her own conclusions.
It's a story of a girl wanting to keep things, never to let them go, when her lot in life is to lose everything and everyone she's known and cared about, and in the end, lose her own life. It sits down in this crevice in your mind and works its way in deep, then when you're finished, you want it not to be over, and it stays there, deep in a corner of your mind.
Extremely well-written, very compelling, and utterly heartbreaking.
Henry Perowne is a neurosurgeon. He lives in London, and one Saturday morning he wakes up to see a plane going down in flames to Heathrow. It's 2003, the US has just decided it wants to go to war with Iraq and is trying to convince Britain and other countries to join in, and there's a big protest scheduled for later that day.
The story follows Henry through his Saturday, from a 4-am tea with his son to late-night sex with his wife. On the way to his squash game, he has a car accident, very minor, which results in a bit of road rage, which then shapes the rest of his day. Henry's poet daughter is coming up from Paris, and his father-in-law is coming to visit as well.
The narrative provides enough backstory to make sense of the characters and the events. Henry is very introspective, but very rational and scientific; he says it's because he's a neurosurgeon. He's at odds with his daughter, who wants him to understand poetry and literature, which he tends to consider nonsense. Give him a nice piano concerto any day over a fantastical YA story.
There's a lot of talk of surgery and brains and bodies, which didn't bore me, though it could bore other people. It was fairly dense at the start, but once I settled into the narrative groove, it flowed well and was ultimately satisfying, even if it made me think about things I don't like thinking about, like old age and infirmity.
