We awoke, early again, in Elke's comfortable guest room, with a great continental German breakfast waiting for us. Yum hot chocolate warmed by a votive candle holder (German engineering at work again!). Elke would be driving us to Rothenburg, saving us a train day and blessing us with a local tour guide[39]. She asked Hansjörg if he wanted to join us, and he agreed, saying that the weather probably wouldn't be good enough for him to fly today anyway. The weather was beautiful. Poor Hansjörg.
We got to Rothenburg and parked next to dozens and dozens of tour busses (bad sign). We got inside the intact medieval walls and....tons of 20th century tourists. Basically, it reminded me of Nevada City or Main Street in Disneyland--many cute touristy shops, and many not-so-cute tourists. Basically, we went to a Christmas shop to buy some ornaments, a souvenir shop to get some shot glasses and a T-shirt, and an art store to get some prints, and then we rushed out of reach from the tourists...up to the wall.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber[40] is a preserved
medieval town complete with its castle walls. You can walk this wall, a little
longer than a mile, single file and above the crowds. Every 10-100 meters there
is a little plaque, which gives the name of the person who donated enough money
to rebuild that section of the wall when it was destroyed in W.W.II. The
American forces bombed Rothenburg in the final weeks of the war, not because it
had any military bases or even any strategic importance, but simply to break
the German spirit. This angered Doug so much that he and Hansjörg spent the
entire walk arguing about war and socialism. Imagine this: along the fortress
of a German city wall, a German and an American are arguing about W.W.II--the
German defending the Americans, and the American defending the Germans. Elke
and I could only roll our eyes and say, "Is anybody looking at the beautiful
buildings we are walking past?"
After the crowds started to dwindle a little bit, we returned to civilization and visited the St. Jacob's Church, which houses the Riemenschneider wood altarpiece. Though they charged money to get in (typical), the woodcarvings were worth it. This was a preview of the Italian marble sculpture to come later on our trip--it was amazing how alive this art seemed. This is not to mention the stunning medieval stained glass, the impressive Gothic ceilings, or the ornate Baroque altar pieces. Can you tell we learned a lot about art and architecture on this trip?
We then ate a couple of the best wursts we'd ever had, and then I dragged
everybody to the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum. Actually, most of the
items in the museum had less to do with physical torture and more about shame
and embarrassment. My favorite was the "shame flute", where a person would be
forced to stand in a square with an iron instrument clamped over his fingers,
so that all could mock him for being a terrible musician. I know of several
people who deserve one of those.
And speaking of shame, I feel a little bad for the 10-year-old girl who was leaning out of the stocks in front of the museum. I wanted to take a picture of Doug and me in the stocks, so I went up to her and asked, "Können wir bitte ein Foto machen?" She looked at me and said "Ich habe kein Foto,"[41] and I realized that I had been totally misunderstood. I didn't want a picture from her, nor did I want to take a picture OF her. I turned to Doug and started expressing my distress over what to say next, when the mother of the girl came over and scolded her off the steps. We took the picture, and then Elke told us that the girl was being scolded, not for misunderstanding my German, but for NOT understanding my English (since she takes it in school). Oops.
Before we took off for "home", Elke wanted to stop off for some ice cream. Here I was given a tiny coke glass, on a tray with a doily--such treatment[42]. Afterwards, we drove down a small segment of the Romantic Road[43], including a detour to Hansjörg's old military base where he did his service...11 years ago? (or was is for 11 years?) Then we zoomed on the Autobahn, watching peculiar signs[44] blur by and hail beat down on the car. Missed the bad weather again! Toll!
It was then that I asked for some comparative info on driving in Europe. He said that a good car gets 4 liters/100 km, which is how they measure "gas mileage". I figure that to be about 60 miles/gallon. However, the gas prices were 1,70 DM/liter (~$4.50/gallon). Diesel is cheap(er) at ~$3.10/gallon, even though its use is discouraged because of the pollution. He also said that prices are sometimes high for things because Germany privatized their utilities[45].
We came home to a wonderful, authentic German dinner of Knudel and turkey, wishing with everything we had that we were just a little hungrier. But I guess you can say we sang for our supper, because after dinner we sang a few of our pieces for a very attentive audience. Hansjörg loved them so much, later he asked for us to write down the names of the pieces we sang so he could find recordings of them! Then Doug continued swilling beer with Gunther and having an in depth "history of language" discussion with Elke, while Lissy and I determined where Doug and I should go the next day. Though she had gone down to the train station earlier that day to print out possible trains to Munich for us (so sweet of her!), we needed a twist to our trip, away from the tourists. Oktoberfest obviously wasn't going to be that, so we decided on Switzerland...
On to LUCERNE.