What is Beauty?

A guest blog by Aidan Cummings: Some people think that beauty is about supermodels and flowers and eyeliner. But it's not. It's simple, and not fancy and showy. It's just love and family, and support when you need it. Like for example, a whole crowd cheering a child with a disability as he crawls his way through a race. As our Iraqi friend would say, "that is soooo beautiful."

Dom Cathedral

We had the chance  to visit Germany's "most visited landmark"-the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Cologne. (Officially the High Cathedral of Saints Peter and Mary.)

I don't have a view camera so there is some perspective distortion as the tops of the buildings seem to lean imposingly.  But I actually like the affect.  It sort of fits the feeling of being in the shadow of the huge towers.

Dom Cathedral

The day that we visisted Cologne was dark and overcast.  At one point, we had to huddle with forced intimacy in the doorway of a souvenier shop with other pedestrains as the sky opened and poured rain, then abruptly stopped as quickly as it began.



Inside, the air was heavy feeling.  Aidan was tip toeing next to me and whispered that he didn't think that it didn't felt like a church should feel. 

Supposedly the remains of the Three Wise Men

While walking around the city we found the most cheerful little shop.  There was a bright colorful display in the window in the midst of this gray and gloomy city that drew us in like bees to a flower.  The best part was that inside we discovered a a huge selection of Shaun the Shaf merchandise.  Now, Chloe loves sheep more than anyone I know, but we all love Shaun the Sheep!  I think we amused the very German shopkeeper with our giddy, childlike excitment.  (And, seriously, watching an engineer that excited about a child's cartoon is great entertainment.) We exercised great restraint though, and only came away with one small magnet.

Musician in front of the great front doors

The Silver Knight

Fernweh

It took about 5 minutes in Germany for my wee ones to decide that they would like to move there.  Of course, a lot of places that we have visited have tended to provoke the same reaction from them.  (Excluding Kansas on down South for some reason.) 
On May 21 we visited the immigrant museum in Hamburg, Germany, which was the spot that exactly 110 years to the day,  my great grandparents on my mother's side had left from to immigrate to the United States. 

Mom marking the spot that her grandparents had left from

My oldest brother has been doing some research on our ancestry.  It appears that a side of our family had the genes of wanders.  With no apparent reason, my ancestors picked up their bags and moved.  Gradually through the generations making their way from Europe to England to Ireland and Scotland.  Continuing from there to New York and then gradually moving from the East coast to the West coast, to where my father was born in California. 

An advertisement coaxing immigrants to America

Some of the 7 kids in my family have picked a spot and stayed there.  Some of us, though, seem to have inherited the Fernweh of our forefathers.  (A German word that literally means "to ache for distant places".)

The Auguste Victoria that carried my great grandparents to Ellis Island

When I was growing up, we moved so often that I had a friend whose parents questioned whether my parents were running from the law.  To me it seemed totally natural that we moved often, it was more unfathomable to me to stay in the same place all your life.  Even now, I start to get restless after a few years in the same place. 

Items from a shipwrecked boat carrying immigrants

Hamming it up at the "immigration office"

It's interesting to think that the same courage and taste for adventure that ran through my ancestors veins, made its way through the generations to affect even our present day lives; giving my children a Fernweh of their own.

Reproduction of immigrant housing

Camping

In an effort to escape this stifling, crazy kind of heat we've been having, we headed to the mountains for our first family camping trip.  We drove an hour or so up to an old ghost town, Caribou.  Here and there we saw evidence of it's silver mining past, although Mother Nature has erased much of its history.

Caribou, Colorado

We adjusted to the fire ban that forbid a campfire, but allowed a camp stove.  Although, really, sitting around roasting marshmallows over a little blue flame is not the same experience as having an actual fire.

Boys and water...

King of the mountain brandishing his swords

Off to battle

The kids loved the freedom of wide open spaces, small mountain streams, old ruins, and moose tracks the size of my hand. It was an arena made for adventures.

Mountain man...before the slip off the rocks that dislocated a knee...

Someone forgot the pan to cook the carefully selected chocolate chip pancake mix in, which necessitated an early departure and trip to the Happy Trails coffee shop for coffee and croissants. Come to find out the younger set doesn't view mesquite flavored pistachios as appropriate breakfast food.

Roscoe

We brought the dog, who enjoyed his adventure just as much as the kids, and slept outside the door of the tent to guard us from the wilds. Next time though, he needs to carry his fair share.

A tiny cabin that now houses only wildflowers and grasses

Columbine

I remembered vacationing in Colorado when I was a girl. My dad kept stopping and exclaiming over the flowers, bending over to take pictures.  I thought it was funny at the time, that in the midst of the majesty of the Rocky Mountains, he was enthralled by the little wildflowers at our feet.  He was especially enchanted with the Columbine. He would have liked this one, I think.

The Gestapo Museum

We got to borrow my sis in law's beautiful, zippy car one day and drive the autobahn the way it was meant to be driven.  We headed to Cologne to see the Dom (more on that another day) and the Gestapo museum.  The clouds were dark and hovering; threatening to deluge us at any moment.  I felt like it fit the mood of the city.

On a narrow street of what looked like an apartment building, so inconspicuous and ordinary that we almost walked past, was the posted sign National Socialism Documentation Center.  Inside was an old Nazi prison, preserved in it's original state.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the air felt heavy with the weight of memories.

We accidentally made a backwards loop and started down below where the cells were. 

The prisoners had left behind names, stories, poems and etchings, hoping that by leaving a trace, they wouldn't just disappear into the void.  But that some mark would remain saying, I was here, I lived, I mattered.

The wall of the first cell

There was a hushed, reverent silence...at least until I smacked face first into the glass of the cell that I didn't realize was there. The burly, uniformed man gave me the eye and came over to make sure that I hadn't damaged anything of his. Nope, just my nose. I smiled as innocently as I could since I was waving my tourist flag bright and boldly with my huge camera slung around my neck, and English tour headphones on my ears. I looked like a dork, but at least a repentant one.

The original handles were still on the doors to the cells

An artist who had fled to Holland made this depiction of Hitler's heirarchy

Padlocks to the doors

A series of displays showing the progression of events.

The Jewish star

At the end of the hallway, steps from the courtyard where executions were made, was a silent room occupied only by a wooden bench. One by one, on the wall, were projected the names of the victims murdered in this building in a never ending loop. Just below the names, were dried bouquets of once beautiful flowers left in decaying remembrance.

Items left behind

Items found in the cells

An America soldier scratched his name on the wall the day after liberation, and I whispered to the walls that I was sorry we hadn't come sooner.

It was a little bit overwhelming because of the amount of information presented in all of the levels.  The walls were lined with people's stories, facts and lists of information. I took more pictures in the beginning, but as we went on, I just tried to soak it in, and maybe somehow by remembering, honor the lives that had been touched.

Heidelberg Castle

Heidelberg has a rich and storied history.  It escaped the bombings that decimated other cities because it was a university town. and the US forces also later used it as a garrison base.  As a result, the town retains its charming, old world feel. It was an easy place to fall in love with.  My brother and sister-in-law indulged our wide-eyed flagrant, touristy need to duck into every souvenir stand we saw.  Aidan found a jaunty, green felt hat with a white feather that he has lovingly worn since then. 

I don't quite have the words to adequately describe this beautiful little town, so hopefully some pictures will do it for me.

Heidelberg Castle

River Neckar

We were finishing our English tour and sitting in the flickering candlelight of the old chapel when the stone walls began to echo from thunder and filled the space with the sound of heavy rain. It was perfectly glorious. It was over as quickly as it began and the clouds rolled back leaving a trail of mist between the green rolling hills and sprawling village below.

The view from the castle walls

The Altstadt (old town)

Castle view from across the river

The castle has many different layers beginning from around a thousand years ago that have been alternately destroyed and rebuilt through the centuries.  At one point in our tour, I was distracted by a man who was videotaping his dog riding a skateboard, so I missed a whole chunk of the history.



Dusk on the river

The largest wine barrel in the world is in the cellar of the castle, and the castle keeper of the wine was a dwarf who could out drink any other man.  The story goes that he eventually died because someone dared him to drink a glass of water.

Public Urination and Other Important Tidbits

Germans are a wonderfully tidy people.  They seem to like things precise and logical.  And they like to have rules, follow rules, and make sure that everyone else follows them too. 

Flying into Germany with a plane that seemed to be mostly European was an orderly affair.  No one walked around while the fasten seat belt sign was on; they were polite, and distantly helpful when the American lady two rows in front of me threw up.

Pretty yellow bike

I didn't see any road kill in the 2 and a half weeks we were there.  And I was looking.  Although, I'm not sure why I was looking.

Putting your feet on the empty seat facing you while on the train to relax?  Not okay.  Someone is likely to reprimand you.

Flipping someone off?  Not okay.  In fact, I heard it was a felony.  That, and cussing someone out in public.  You have to keep the road rage under control, people.

Public peeing?  They are totally cool with that.  I don't get that at all.  To me that clashes with a neat and tidy lifestyle.  How can it be okay to urinate on hundreds of years old buildings, but not to jaywalk?

Graffiti is also totally legal.  It was everywhere.  Some of it was really beautiful, like along the railway stations.  But then there were random scrawlings on beautiful old buildings everywhere that were definitely not beautiful.

Pretty red bike with a basket

There is this thing with the moniker of "The Idiot Test".  If you get so many speeding tickets, the authorities will take away your license and subject you to a battery of phsychological testing to prove that you are mentally competent.  Because in their minds, the only reason that someone would break the rules that many times must be because they were mentally challenged in some way.  (Although I would think having an American passport would also be explanation enough...)

Cute metal basket

Flying out the Frankfurt airport with a plane load of Americans: 

The lady supervising the lines was frustrated with the lazy sprawling line that we were forming.  She was increasingly frustrated that for some reason we didn't form a SINGLE FILE LINE because people kept bunching up to to talk to each other.  She even tried demonstrating what a single file line looked like.  Then there was a person whose sole responsibility was to be in charge of the line leading into the security screening.  And he stood there all day holding and directing traffic into one of the
MANY screening points to make sure that each line had the same number of people in it.  From there, you were met by a man who supervised you as you put everything into the gray plastic tubs-refolding things if you hadn't done it tidily enough.  Then there was the line at the gate boarding.  The lady in charge of this line took her job very seriously.  She must have had a degree in line management or something.  She reorganized us at least 3 times into different lines based on some criteria in her mind which was never clear to us.  All this was so that we could step outside and all crowd into a shuttle bus (with men's armpits in my face) to be driven out to our plane.  I'm not sure why the lines were so important since we were all going the same place, and had assigned seating.  Maybe the people in the front of the line had more room on their shuttle bus and didn't have to stand smelling underarms in front of you.

The seatbelt sign seemed to be more of a suggestion than a rule because there was a steady stream of traffic to the bathroom regardless.  The only indication that it was not okay was the increasingly harried announcements to please stay in your seat (which had no affect whatsoever).

One last picture because with so much talk about public urination should at least end with something pretty to look at

In the US airport going through customs, there were numerous official looking signs informing us that cell phones and cameras were NOT ALLOWED.  The lady behind me in line promply whipped out her cell phone to call someone to tell them that she would call them later, because, she was "not supposed to be using her phone"!  I tried to imagine a German doing that.  Nope, couldn't do it.