Riots and Zons

20.Sep.08
Zonz Bike ride and Nazis

Köln is traditionally a very tolerant city and it follows that there is a relatively large multicultural population. To cater to the large Islamic group, a big Mosque will be built within the year. Unfortunately, there are those in Germany and Europe that see things a bit differently than you and I. This weekend there was a “congress” (not political, in the English colloquial definition) or meeting of the radical right folks with a group called “Pro Köln”. Though the name has a positive sentiment and their public message is one of German cultural preservation, this city and cultural pride is manifested more often through discrimination of everyone that is not “German”. These are the Nazis. People came from all over Europe to demonstrate and meet to discuss what is to be done about a “problem” they called the (rough translation) “Islam-ization of Germany”. As I understand it, they are convinced Muslims are trying to turn Germans toward Islam in some sort of soft revolution.


So there were demonstrations and counterdemonstrations planned, 3000 police officers came to town with riot gear and “we-mean-business” attitudes and although there were squabbles, it was almost a non-event. Hotels were ‘full’, taxi drivers ‘didn’t have room’, and bars around town posted signs that said “Kein Kölsch für Nazis” (No beer for Nazis). I heard the main demonstration had only 50 neo-Nazi radicals because the rest of the group was late and the police wouldn’t let them in. In the picture above, you can see a line of white helmets and green uniforms.

Wanting to check out the action on my way to Zons, I biked to a crowded place and took a few pictures. It felt like what I imagine the revolutionary ‘60s was like. Rows of police with helmets and body armor, oddly dressed youth running around and yelling, parents clutching their children, ect. An old guy on a racing bike stopped next to me and we chatted for a minute about the situation and the area started to get a bit rowdy. He yelled “Folgen Sie mir!” and we blasted away through crowds, down alleys, past police lines, and eventually came out on the other side of the demonstration. Exciting! He was an interesting fellow and we biked for half an hour or so together. He spoke quickly in short bursts and yelled at cars when they came too close. He was a racer in is youth and has ridden all over Europe.


My keen sense of Party led me to Zons, a small town which happened to be celebrating something with lots of food, kid activities, and arts booths in the old town. I clanked up and down the cobblestones with my cycle shoes, visited an old windmill, and at the end of the city, I ran into the old guy again. We ended up grabbing espresso and a sandwich at a café and discussing politics and Lance Armstrong’s return.


In German, as with Spanish and probably other languages, there is a formal and an informal way of talking about people. Germans have Sie (formal) and du and Spanish uses Usted and tu. Sie is used when talking to people older than yourself or people you don’t know du more between friends. We were speaking with Sie for mostly the entire time but when were almost back in Köln, he said in German “Use the du form. We are both athletes, yes?” That was a nice moment of acceptance for me.

The Bratwurst Dilemma

This is a picture of statue of a skeleton having a great time.

The Bratwurst Dilemma

Germany is regarded as a country of precision. The trains are precisely on time and time is precisely kept on intricate time pieces tucked neatly behind pressed cuffs. The country made the BMW e28 M5, and the Porsche 911, and the people follow the exact instructions of “walk-don’t walk” signs. Juice containers have a square base so they fit better in square refrigerators, and the parking spaces are no bigger than the cars that use them. One would think that a country that prides itself on precision could have devoted a bit more attention to their lunch: the bratwurst.

I enjoy the delicious sausage but honestly, it is a square peg in a round hole situation; it just doesn’t fit. If a couple of engineers from Mercedes diverted their attention away from their intricate power convertible hardtops for just a few minutes, I’m confident they could design a better fitting bread to go with the wurst.



Notice that First Bite A yielded only bread. Dimensions B and C are far too large.

Perhaps the misfit comes not from a lack of consideration but a love of the Brotchen. If there was a German nutrition pyramid with only bread, the Brotchen would be the wide base. People buy them in bulk at the bakeries and the stores almost always have signs in front that say how reasonably priced their Brotchens are. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Bad fitting but well loved bread is indeed a terrible socio-culinary problem but fear not dear friends, for I have the answer. Smaller bratwursts. That’s right, small enough so they fit within the beloved Brotchen. By creating bratwursts that are a few inches shorter (minimize Dimensions B and C), the awkward disproportionate problem would be remedied and who knows, reduced bratwurst consumption may even increase the average life expectancy. Happy eats!

-H

Cycle Poem

This is a poem I wrote. I'll call it "I need to retire", unless I can think of a better name. But that one's pretty good. This poem was designed to be read at a leisurely pace with barely noticeable contemplative pauses. Enjoy.

I need to retire
By Henry

I was riding out one lovely day,
Well, “lovely” in my sort of way,
With clouds above and trail below
And grass, in dire need of mow.

I flicked my wrist to switch my gears,
And let the sounds waft through my ears.
Sounds of chain and swapping cogs,
Of open fields, and barking dogs.

Metric distance flew right past,
For I was traveling very fast.
I soon had left the main Cologne.
Riding south, all alone.

Mesmerized by sounds and sights,
Flashing tree shadows and cloudy whites,
I suddenly felt slower than before,
And decided I should not ride anymore.

I quickly stopped to check the scene,
And, on the survey of my machine
I found that I was missing air,
My holey tire needed repair.

Now I had tools for loose and tight,
For fixing things that don’t look right.
For long and short, high and low,
Everything to help me go.

I had the air and had the skill,
I had a spot to sit and chill.
But sadly I had yet to acquire,
The thing I needed most: a tire.

I promptly made a mental note,
And then one more, to bring a coat,
For rain was falling from the sky,
I started walking and gave a sigh.

How many miles I don’t recall,
And I’d rather not discuss it all.
‘Cause it was long and I was tired.
Without the piece that was required.

A stop at the shop and a card swipe later,
A few more minutes with the inflator,
And new tires rolled ‘round once more.
I grabbed my gear and I was out the door.

I cruised the city and it was dark
Over the bridge and through the park.
I checked my pressure at the Dom.
Good. I made my way back home.

The Meal

I have just eaten with Frau Frielingsdorf (Grandma) and Philip. She is very traditional and as such, prepares very traditional German food. You know it's a square German meal when all of the shades of brown are represented on one plate. We ate heavily sauced pork, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut. Everything was very fresh and very delicious and we finished it off with a slice of plum cake. Fantastic. I'm just glad my elastic cycle shorts will be able to accommodate me when I pedal like crazy to burn off the last few thousand calories I've consumed.

-H

Aachen

Out of all of the places I been, this one sounds the most like a sneeze.
13.Sep.2008
Aachen

On a whim, I decided to travel to Aachen for a day. I looked up a couple of things on the official city tourism website and hopped on the train at 1035. About an hour of reading the Frankfurter Allgemein, I arrived in the cold and rainy city. Not wanting to miss out on the local culture, I quickly became cold and wet as I wandered through the city. My first stop was the Aachen Dom, in the middle of the town. I found it easily but along the way, I also found several open air stages and food booths. Aachen was in the middle of a city wide celebration! I’m still not sure if there was a specific reason but there were probably six stages in six different small plazas with jazz trios, quartets, and quintets playing for the majority of my stay. I munched a bratwurst and listened for a while but I sought refuge in the Dom.


Every city is quite proud of their main church and it often appears in city logos. Köln, for example, shows off their twin church steeples every chance possible with the silhouette on everything official in the city. Aachen’s Dom, however, only has one steeple and the whole church is much smaller. However, there is a snazzy bridge that connects the third floor walkway of one inner space to another and this elevated enclosed, yet exposed passage way must be the bees’ knees to the Aachen folk because they proudly display a side profile as their city logo.

What this church lacks in size it makes up for with inner coolness. The parishioners sit in an octagonal main space about the size of the high school three-point line on a basketball court if it was a full circle. That space goes directly up two floors above ground with a dome ceiling. There is a walkway around the center octagon with arched and vaulted ceilings and they look great! The ceilings are a mix of blues and greens with gilded gold patterns. Quite spectacular. Because it was smaller but still had a lot going on, it didn’t have the intimidating vast open spaces. It felt comfortable, like a church that had been ‘lived in’ so to speak. The walls were not bare stone and 100 feet tall, but rather small and decorated. Nice place.




This was a carving in the stone but millions of shoes have warn it down over the years.


This is what you would see if you were lying on the floor looking up.

Despite my damp status, I was quite thirsty so I went to a kiosk to grab some water. There comes a time in a man’s life when he just wants water, simple water. Nothing fruity or guaranteed to improve athletic performance, just water. Not thinking, I grabbed a clear fluid, parted with a few coins, and cracked the top. The hissing sound I heard may as well have come from my deflating excitement; I had grabbed sparkling water. The rain came down harder.

My interest in 18th century life was increased by the fact that I could learn about while my clothes dried so I went inside a museum. It was actually a neat house; it was very old and preserved to illustrate a time in history.

I also went through the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, a deceptively large museum with classic and newer art. I think I was the only one in the museum but they had some good stuff and it was displayed well. There is a sister museum of sorts called the Ludwig Forum for Contemporary Art or something to that tune. Weird! The main artist probably had some background with technical and biological drawing because there were lots of paintings and drawings that brought humans in some form into technical schematics. Most of the contemporary or modern art in this museum had some sort of message, political or social, and I enjoyed that, perhaps because I’ve seen some modern art that seems to have the message “Look what I get paid to do. Crazy, right?” Or perhaps my tastes in modern art aren’t advanced enough to understand some of it. I digress.



"Seriously?! I like to walk in the street and play drums too! But we had better wear something bright so we don't get hit by cars."


You might think this was a candid photo taken by a short person when I wasn't looking but it is not. I took the picture.


Traditional looking lamps on a traditional looking building.

Thanks either to my keen sense of parties or dumb luck, the last two weekend trips have been spot on for urban exploring. It’s great to see a city in celebration because there are way more people out and they are happier. To end the day, I enjoyed a crepe and some jazz until the very last minute and then I ran like crazy to catch the train. Nice town.

Cheese: The Smile

12.Sep.2008

“Cheese” is the favorite smile-inducing word used by photographers in America. We were taking some pictures in class today so I asked about other countries. In China, they say something that sounds like “Tscheeeee” which means eggplant. They say “Spaghetti” in Germany. Judging by some of the photos I’ve seen, it looks like some Germans may have been caught in the “Spa” part of the word. I asked the Egyptian and he said, laughing, they say “Stop smiling!” He said they smile only enough to not appear angry. He was smiling big and laughing the whole time, however.

-H

German School System

This is a picture of a cat who thought the most comfortable place to take a nap in the entire house was on my homework.

11.Sep.2008

Our theme for the past few days of language school has been education. We spent some time discussing the German school system and a bit talking about the various systems in our various homelands. It has been an interesting few days; I’ve learned a lot.

The German school system isn’t doing so hot right now. The teachers at the lower levels aren’t as good as they should be and compared to other European countries, there is generally a lack of people pursuing further education, especially in technical disciplines. Their system is quite different from the US.

Kids enter the Grundschule (Ground School) at 5 or 6 years old and spend four years learning elementary school stuff. At the end of the four years, the teacher (potentially with less than admirable motivation, bordering on corruption) makes a decision about the child’s future. The child will enter the Gymnasium, the Hauptschule, or the Realschule. In my state Nordrhein-Westfalen, there is also a fourth option but it’s not too important. The Gymnasium is considered here the most intellectually advanced and after they finish (total of 12 years, recently lowered from 13 years), they make their Abiture, a relatively long extensive test that allows them to go to the Hochschules (higher level school). The Realschule is kind of how it sounds; the children prepare for a job by studying more real/practical things and less theory. These folks will go on to further occupational training if they so desire after their 10th year of school. These are the mechanics, construction workers, and other types of what we could consider blue collar workers. The Hauptschule, though initiated for other reasons, has turned into what seems like the least desirable place to be. The teacher described this as the place for kids without a chance, which seems really harsh, but that is another topic I will address later. Kids with sub par German language abilities and difficult kids seem to end up in the Hauptschule.

The Gymnasium kids, after completing the Abiture have the choice between the University and the Fachhochschule (subject-high-school), both considered higher education. The University is more theoretical in nature and teaches literature, philosophy, math, languages, and also technical things like engineering while the Fachhochschule is geared toward practical technical work. The University gives out Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degrees and the Fachhochschule only does Bachelors and Masters because there is more of an emphasis in practical application rather than theory and research.

In theory, any student, regardless of the initial school placement, can attend the University or the Fachhochschule but in practice this isn’t the case. Twenty-five percent of students go the Gymnasium and those are generally the ones that go on to higher education. I get the feeling this system and the viewpoint of the Germans are connected but I’m not sure which one came first. My host ‘mother’, when I was explaining our system where everyone studies more or less the same thing through high school, asked about the “dumb” kids, as if there was a group of people that were inherently less intelligent. This is quite a difference from mine and the American viewpoint and it is easy to see this difference in the style of our education systems: the American system generally keeps all of the kids together through 12th grade and the German system splits the kids into groups very early on. My German teacher is not a fan of Germany’s system.

The second interesting thing I learned about education systems around the globe lies in the curriculum. Despite declaring my engineering major from day one, I still took literature, history, art, music, philosophy, religion, psychology, and sociology classes. My Macedonian and Venezuelan friends thought that was way weird and the German teacher was also surprised that a technical dude such as my dabbled in the “soft sciences”. They only took classes related directly to their major and asked why I messed around with all of that extra stuff. Egypt, Albania, China, and Kazakhstan all backed me up, helping to explain the benefit of a broad education but in the end, we agreed to disagree. My Venezuelan friend said that learning history, religion, art, and philosophy are indeed important but they are individual responsibilities; the student should enrich his- or herself on his/her own time. A valid point, but I think there is a lot to be learned by learning in a group; there are more viewpoints and insights one cannot gain by studying alone.

With my new perspective on world schools, I’m quite pleased with the education I’ve received.

-H

Duisburg

Duisburg coat of arms
6.Sep.08

On a whim, I decided to take the train to Duisburg after I returned from Bonn. I made a quick list of things I saw online that looked interesting, forget the list in my room, and hopped on the train. Forty-five minutes later, I was walking through the Bonn Hauptbahnhof keeping an eye out for interesting things. My GPS navigated me to the nearest modern art museum, a 500m stroll down the street. I spent the next hour at the Stiftung Wilheim Lehmbruck Museum. I really enjoyed the building itself; some of the galleries had huge wide open spaces with different levels, and lots of concrete and metal. The art in this museum had a focus on the human form. There were lots of paintings and sculptures of faces and people. There was a progression called “Woman sitting” that I thought was particularly interesting because it went from distinguishable sketches of a lady sitting to a sculpture that looked nothing like a lady sitting with the intermediate steps. It showed what the artist was thinking when he created the sculpture, how the sketches became more and more abstract.



I then unpacked my skates and rolled down the path of least resistance until I found myself at the Rathaus, the city political building. They were having an open house so I grabbed a program and toured the offices and decision making rooms of the city of Duisburg.

What seemed like a convention for old gentlemen who like to wear grey trousers, red vests, and blue blazers was actually a very good choir and they performed in the atrium.

Using my keen sense of perception and wit, I deduced from the beer tents, banners, and hordes of people that something must be going on. It turns out that Duisburg was celebrating its 1125th (one thousand one hundred and twenty-fifth) birthday so the whole town was celebrating!

I rolled downhill to the river and came across a large field with barbaric looking tents and log-pole structures. The smell of weird food and smoke wafted through the air and suddenly I was in medieval times. Equally barbaric looking people emerged from the tents and started yelling, walking toward the center of the field. Instantly, cameras appeared from the pockets of those in the field wearing trendy jeans and sweaters and the battle began. The barbarians clanked swords and shields for a few minutes until about half of them were lying on the ground and then Duisburg was founded(?). I’m just guessing that the battle reenactment had something to do with Duisburg’s foundation but it might just be what they do on Saturdays.




I passed the LegoLand Discovery Center on my way to the Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst. The exterior was very industrial looking with towers and lots of bricks and windows but the inside was a collection of very large, very white rooms. The art was all on canvases but there were very few concrete images. Most of it was thick paint dabs of a variety of colors. Sometimes, they looked like something from a distance. The stair case was particularly cool.




I killed some time writing in a sculpture park and eating but the concert started at around 1900. I listened to one of the openers and it was okay but I really enjoyed Wir Sind Helden (We are heroes). I first heard them on the radio in Salzburg and I was delighted that I could hear them in concert. It was loud enough to rattle my lungs and it was fantastic. They put on a good show and they played a lot of my favorites.



It was cool to see the community getting into it as well. It was a loud rock concert but there were lots of serious looking grey-haired folk getting into it as well. As one of their last songs, they had a local marching band march on stage and play background music. Bringing the community members into the concert was a great touch and the crowd loved it. Good show. I took the super fast ICE train and made it back before 12pm. What a day!

More Cowbell

Bike to Bonn, West

6.Sep.2008

After the success of last week’s bike ride to Bonn, I decided to take the west side of the river. All things considered, it was not as great as the east side. The path was bumpier, and the scenery wasn’t as good. I recommend the east side. It was, however, still a fantastic ride and I brought my camera.


Moo


Neat castle


Bike and Field


There are lots of these Beethoven statues around the city (Beethoven was born in Bonn) and companies paint the statues as they see fit.

-H

If it ain't baroque, . . .

31.Aug.08

After Frühstucking (eating breakfast) with my host family, I packed a day bag and hopped on the train to Brühl, about 15 minutes south of Köln. Augustusburg and Falkenlust Castles (Unesco World Heritage Sites) are the main attractions of this small town. The castles were started around 1725 at the request of the Archbishop of Cologne. Not having planned or prepared, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the huge house right in front of the train station. On the way to the “castle” I got sidetracked by the palace gardens modeled after those at Versailles. There are both sculptured and natural gardens; the inner part of the garden has water, and geometrically organized flowers and bushes while the outer part has a lush forest littered with walking paths. I spent a few hours walking around at a pretty good pace following my GPS arrow to the Falkenlust Castle. I stopped to smell the roses as well.

The Falkenlust is kind of a home away from home for those claiming residence at the main Augustusburg. Back in the day, having trained birds was the bees knees and the must have accessory for the hunting crew. They even made leather flying hats for the bees that reminded me of my winter driving gear. The Falkenlust was the hunting lodge but now it is a super pampered building where visitors wear wool slippers and are followed by the curators (who almost slip and fall because of the danger of wool slippers on polished wood floors).

After visiting the hunting lodge, I hoofed it back to the main house. Because they only do guided tours every hour, I had some time to kill so I reclined in garden grass and watched clouds.




The Augustusburg Castle is rococo and baroque. Though I can appreciate the style, it’s not really my thing. The whole principle is to be ridiculously over the top, and balanced. For example, there was a room with an upper balcony that ran around the circumference. There were four doors up on that second level but only one of them worked; the rest were there only for aesthetics. That doesn’t jive with my “function is beauty” principles. The tour guide spoke only in German but I learned a fair amount about the style and traditions of the time. Each room has subtle design hints to show what it was for. One room had all of the floofy, frilly decoration designed to look like trees and leaves in order to make the connection between architecture and nature more evident as the resident gazed over the gardens.

I walked around a bit and this got me giggling. This gentleman seemed just as confused as I was as to how his car was sideways in a street.


Peace,
-H