Twenty-five years ago today, my parents were married. Waaaay back in 1986. A quarter of a century. 9,125 days. That’s not including the four years they dated either. In my mom’s words, “By now, I’ve had more of my life with him than without him!”
That quarter-century has included four kids, three homes, several pets, and many, many hairstyles (at least on her part).
Thankfully, they still seem to like each other alright.
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. Thanks for giving us a happy home.
Let’s get all the excuses out of the way, shall we? I started not one but TWO new jobs, which have limited my free time; I wanted to find the journal I kept during my trip to this first country, but couldn’t; I’m really, really behind on watching Doctor Who and wanted to catch up (fail on that one, too); ditto for my pile of library books.
Shambles! I’m in shambles!
But that handily dispatches with all the excuses, so I would like to introduce the very first foreign country that I ever visited: El Salvador.
My descriptions will be a little hazy, since I went to El Salvador in 2007 and spent most of my trip in various states of sleep deprivation (hence my desire to find the journal). I do remember that, despite the poverty, it was a beautiful and fascinating country.
THE PLACES I WENT: I joined a group of several dozen other youths and adults on a missions trip to El Salvador. Our “headquarters” were at El Castillo del Rey (King’s Castle)*, a missionary training facility a couple hours outside the capital of San Salvador. Should I find my journal, I’ll come back and fill in the name of the nearest big city. However, the “castle” itself is on the coast of El Lago de Coatepeque inside the Coatepeque Caldera.
“Caldera”, for those not fluent in Spanish, means “crater”, and this crater isn’t a crater in the asteroid-slamming-into-Earth sense. No, the entire camp actually sits inside an extinct volcano. Yep, those mountains you see in the picture above are actually the lip of a real, freaking volcano!**
The lake itself, we were told, is thousands of feet deep, which makes sense, being inside a volcano. At the castle, the locals had constructed a pier with a rope swing. One swing would fling you maybe fifteen to twenty feet off the shore, and the water would be a good forty feet deep. The swing was lots of fun, but we tried not to think about what might be living in the deepest parts of the lake.
Other than the mountains and the lake, the other aspect of the camp that we liked were the wild horses. Apparently, the mountains surrounding the castle were filled with herds of wild horses that would wander down into camp any time they felt like it. Since they had been doing this for years, the horses weren’t too antsy around humans, but as we weren’t complete morons, we still gave them a wide berth.
During our “work days”, we were sent off to different small villages near the castle to evangelize in the streets and in schools. The region was definitely poor, like something out of a documentary. Shacks made out of scrap, dirt roads, and waste in the streets were the norm. Maybe this would have been offensive or off-putting to a slightly more experienced traveler, but I was fascinated. I couldn’t tell apart one village from another – they may even have been different sections of the same village, for all I knew.
However, on our last day, we were relieved from our work and sent to a tourist destination. The resort (name unknown) was on a beach on the Pacific coast. Here, tourists come to lay in the cloth hammocks, walk along the rock beaches, and, I’m told, surf. About.com has a list of some of the “best” El Salvadorean beaches***. Whether the one I went to was on the list, I don’t know. What I do know is that, as a Floridian girl, I found the beach enchantingly exotic.
Rather than the warm, white sand I was familiar with, the beach was covered in black rocks smoothed by the waves. Some were only pebbles, but others were the size of my fist or larger. Being on the Pacific, the water was different as well. It was colder and much rougher, with some of the waves strong enough to send us tumbling even in only calf-deep water.
On our way to the airport, we were also taken through a large fleamarket, where we bartered for different handmade crafts. That’s an experience I suggest you do not pass up.
There’s so much more I could say about El Salvador; unfortunately, most of what I can relate is specifically tied to our work there as temporary missionaries (using holes in the ground for toilets, humongous flying ants, the Frog Invasion) and therefore isn’t very useful for anyone thinking of going to El Salvador for recreational purposes. However, I will say that even amid great poverty, the country itself was beautiful and the people were very hospitable. I would love to go again someday.
*http://www.kingscastle.org/MinistryCenters/InternationalTrainingCenter/tabid/619/Default.aspx
**http://listverse.com/2011/08/03/top-10-amazing-volcano-lakes/ (#9)
***http://gocentralamerica.about.com/od/elsalvadorguide/tp/El_Salvador_Beaches.htm
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” — St. Augustine
I love reading and I love traveling, so this quote makes me nod and murmured, “MMMMhmm” like a happy, black grandma. Anyone who bothered to read my blog back when it chronicled my study abroad experiences would know how much I love traveling. That is, I love going to see new places. The nitty-gritty of traveling doesn’t excite me so much. Only a total die-hard would enjoy some of the catastrophes I had to muddle through. However, though I still am bitter toward the French transportation systems, I count all the crazy snafus worth being able to visit some of the places I visited.
In nearly 21 years of life, I have visited 6 countries, if I include the United States in that count. This number isn’t as impressive as it sounds, as I was only able to see snippets of most countries. Since I haven’t found a reason for this blog yet, I’ll be using travel as my fallback plan whenever I don’t have something interesting to discuss (or another Lucas failure to bemoan). In each post, I’ll choose one country I’ve been to, talk a little bit about it, describe what I saw, etc., as well as talk about places I still want to visit in that country should I ever go again.
It’s a little narcissistic of me, but since Dad’s the only one who reads this anyways, I figure I can do whatever the stink I want. Hooray for benevolent dictatorships!
I watched an Indiana Jones movie for the first time in my life yesterday. But wait, it gets worse.
I didn’t like it.
I know, I know. I’m just as shocked as you are. Everyone I know likes Indiana Jones. They said he’s amazing. A hilarious movie, they said. Tons of fun, they said. So of course I’d like it, right? After all, I was introduced to (indoctrinated by?) Star Wars when I was six. I have no memory of a life before lightsabers and Sith lords. I think Princess Bride is one of the funniest movies ever made and can quote it by heart. I may not be a comic book devotee, but I know enough to keep up with and enjoy the superhero movies that come out. I’m hooked on Doctor Who. I even like Star Trek (the new movie – I just can’t get into Shatner’s version). 
So what in blue blazes went wrong with Indiana Jones?
For those wondering, I did start with the first movie (Raiders of the Lost Ark), not the fourth (Legend of the Crystal Skull). No aliens for me (belated spoiler alert). I don’t think I went in with my hopes unrealistically high, but I didn’t expect my enjoyment to plummet as far as it did. When the movie started, I noted the grainy, one-dimensional quality but quickly dismissed it. Raiders was made in 1981, in between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Those movies weren’t as grainy, but I also owned the remastered versions, maybe they were a little rough on the eyes back in the day. Also, along with Harrison Ford, the opening credits promised that I would see John Rhys-Davies and Alfred Molina (whom I know as Gimli and Doc Ock). That’s some star power, right there.
Unfortunately, I was confused and a little befuddled by the cheesiness of the movie almost from the beginning. Indy, his two companions (Molina and some other guy), and their native guide find a stone statue with its mouth open. The guide uncovers the statue and then runs off, screaming in terror like a little girl. Why? Is the statue a symbol for some strange, South American curse? Did the guide have nightmares about the statue when he was a child? Did it remind him of his mother-in-law? Who knows!
Well, I was determined not to let one moment of schlock ruin a good movie, so I settled back and continued to watch. The rest of the intro was pretty good, because it showcased how cunning and careful Indy was and gave me a laugh at the same time when the spikes shot out and revealed one of Indy’s failed predecessors. Nothing else was terribly surprising, however. Indy grabs the idol, they run, giant boulder, blah blah blah. I suppose this is the problem with seeing a famous movie– I already know all the surprises! It’s like sitting down to watch Citizen Kane and expecting 
to be intrigued by the whisper about Rosebud. It’s a sled, everyone knows that. The same goes with the later scene where Indiana shoots the assassin in the marketplace. It’s a clever scene (improvised at that, according to IMDB), but I didn’t laugh, because I was expecting it.
Molina betrays Indy, saw it coming. Belloq outsmarts Indy, saw it coming. The girl outdrinks the big Nepalese man, saw it coming. The bad guys show up in the bar just after Indy leaves, saw it coming. Indy saved the girl with his whip, saw it coming. This, I suppose, is the curse of being a trendsetter. If viewed after all the trends it has set, a trendsetter looks like it’s copying the copycats.
Worse, I think, were the moments that I didn’t see coming, because they were almost always bad moments. The violence was surprisingly graphic, at least for me. I’m used to movies with a potentially high body count but very little impact. Star Wars is like that, as are many other action-adventure movies. Entire armies or even planets can be wiped off the map, but the violence is rarely ever personal. But in Raiders, a man is impaled on spikes. Other men are shot and blood oozes from their noses and mouths. A man is decimated by spinning propellers. And then, of course, at the end, three men have their heads exploded/melted.
The tiredness and schlock of the movie, as well as the unexpected graphic nature, are my two main complaints. I have others, including the girl companion who should have really died in that stupid basket (if I had to listen to one more squealed, “Oh Indy!”…), the eventual monotony of the chase scenes and fistfights, the fact that Indy never really was allowed to show his cleverness from the opening scene again, the anticlimactic nature of both the Ark’s initial rescue and its eventual storage in some featureless Army facility, etc.
Maybe someday, after repeated viewings, I’ll learn to enjoy Indiana Jones. It’s possible, I suppose. More importantly, I wonder if watching Indiana Jones will affect how I view other childhood favorites, such as Star Wars. George Lucas’ masterpiece is probably just as corny as Raiders, if not more so, but I’ve never noticed, since it was something I grew up with. I even loved the ewoks, because what first-grader doesn’t love tribal teddy bears? So maybe I can reconcile the two sagas. After all, George Lucas wrote them both.
If not, I can blame it all on old George. He deserves it after Jar-Jar Binks.
My father has been politely pestering me for over a year to write something, anything really. While I understood his reasoning, I thought there was no point. I have nothing to say, and even if I did, I was afraid posts would eventually unravel into the banal, narcissistic posts usually found on Facebook or Twitter– “Saw a squirrel today. It had a fluffy tail” “Ate breakfast. Yum.”
Stuff like that. Then, not only would writing be a waste of my time (not that I don’t have plenty to spare), but a waste of everyone else’s as well… or at least Dad’s, because if he’s pushed me to write, he better read this thing.
My first blog post in over a year and I’m already rambling. Best to cut to the chase. What prompted me to write a post? Nothing short of a grave outrage, an effrontery to all who still pause their Tivo now and then to watch a well-crafted commercial.
Old Spice, they of the hilarious “I’m on a horse” Super Bowl commercial, have replaced Isaiah Mustafa. No one seems to know if the replacement is temporary or permanent, but Old Spice has already rolled out four (FOUR!) YouTube clips featuring their new “Manly Man” with Isaiah nowhere to be seen.
And who is the new spokesperson? Surely someone cool, right? After all, Isaiah, an ex-professional football player, was delightfully tongue-in-cheek, enough so to be a viral sensation after the 2010 Super Bowl. He even met the Dos Equis guy (aka, “The Most Interesting Man in the World”).
Maybe someone suave, like George Clooney or Jon Hamm? No, too well-known and expensive, perhaps. If Old Spice wanted cheap, they could go with Charlie Sheen. Not that the ex-star would have been such a wise choice, but he can’t be doing so well, and an Old Spice gig would have built his cache. Or the campaign could have chosen a virtual unknown, like they did with Isaiah. After all, between the NFL and NBA lockouts, there are plenty of athletes to choose from. So who did they choose?
Fabio. Yes, that Fabio.
Real name Fabio Lanzoni, according to Wikipedia. Once an Italian fashion model, he’s most known for posing on the covers of romance novels, the paperback kinds that you find on the bottom shelves in the book section at Walmart. He was a little before my time, so I primarily know him as the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” guy and the guy with long hair from that one episode of Step By Step.
Now, I don’t know very much about marketing and such beyond the one advertising class I took at the University of Florida (shout-out to you, Mr. D!), but this seems like a very poor move on Old Spice’s part. Perhaps they thought that, as a rather campy figure, Fabio would be the best choice to continue Isaiah’s wry, winking legacy. After all, the man has to know he’s viewed as a little ridiculous, right? From what I’ve seen of the four commercials, they do try to play to (and subtly poke fun at) his strengths; namely, his hair. But, in my opinion, they fail.
Why? Well, for several reasons. First, Fabio is old. Not old in the general meaning of the word, especially since my father would kill me if I called a man only a few years his senior ancient. But Fabio is old hat. The 80′s might be making a resurgence in pop culture, but some things, like shoulder pads and hair metal, just shouldn’t be brought back. Also, for the record, he’s a good thirteen years old than the man he’s replacing. Just saying.
Second, I believe that Fabio has little-to-no social cache among Old Spice’s target audience. As far as I can remember, Old Spice’s primary demographic is something like 18-to-24-year-old males, right? They were the ones the company targeted with their Manly Man Isaiah. But will young adult men really want to buy a product touted by a guy mostly known for bodice-ripper covers and butter commercials? Moreover, will they want to identify with a man who has been compared to an Afghan hound, a fairly girly looking dog?
Old Spice’s secondary audience (or, one could argue, their primary for the The Man Your Man Could Smell Like campaign) is, of course, the wives and girlfriends of those 18-to-24-year-old males. Now, the moms of these males might be persuaded by Fabio, but presuming the significant others are in the same age range as the primary audience, will they look at Fabio and say, “Hmm, that’s a man I want my man to be.” As someone who fits in the secondary demographic, I’m going to say no. To me, Fabio is not manly. He’s a washed-up symbol of the 80′s and 90′s, he’s old, and he has hair that only a Barbie would envy. Not manly.
Third and lastly, Fabio’s commercials just aren’t that great. I didn’t laugh, not once. Okay, maybe a little, but only because the piano commercial was so ridiculous. I’ve included an Isaiah commercial and a Fabio commercial below for comparison. By clicking on the title, you can go to YouTube and watch, as well as look up their other clips, including the ridiculous one with the piano.
Enjoy.
So this is my long overdue concluding post. I’ve been back in the States for nearly three weeks exactly. I grabbed the title from a Ray Charles song that is apparently very popular in elementary schools, because “Born in the U.S.A.” seemed like the expected thing to do. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_HeLofy7IE )
It’s been different being home, but not as different as I thought it would be. During orientation, they talked about reverse culture shock, where it would be just as odd coming back as it was going abroad. Not true, at least not for me. I wasn’t even overwhelmed being surrounded by American accents, but that probably had more to do with flying into Miami– very few American accents there.
Getting to Miami was surprisingly uneventful. I finished most of my packing on Friday, so Saturday I just knocked about. My Saturday melded into Sunday so I could catch my 1:15 AM taxi to Broadmarsh. I was nervous, because it began to POUR only hours before the taxi was supposed to arrive. Pour! It doesn’t rain in England; at least, it hadn’t before. In England, it mists and it spits and sometimes it hails, but it never gives you a good, soaking rain. Go figure England would give me one as a parting gift. Luckily, the deluge stopped just before my taxi came and didn’t start up again until I was safely in the station.
The bus ride to London reminded me of a little quirk I have: lack of sleep makes me sick, literally. I spent the whole 3+ hour ride fighting nausea. Bleh. Then, of course, my terminal is a good ten minutes walk from the Central Bus Station. Two nearly-fifty pound suitcases, a nearly-thirty pound backpack, and a very large messenger bag that held tons of books AND a laptop; add dehydration, sleep deprivation, hunger, nausea, and a growing need for a restroom? I was not happy. Then I get there and can’t check in because I’m too early. Of course, it wouldn’t be reasonable for them to open up check-in SIX HOURS before the flight, so it’s not their fault. Still, it didn’t improve my mood any. I have discovered that airport seats really aren’t that bad for sleeping.
Six hours later, I was on a semi-comfy Virgin Atlantic flight home. That’s a nine hour flight, by the way. They fed us well, and the view of the clouds was gorgeous, and the amount of onboard entertainment was staggering, but OY! I was beyond ready to get off that plane, and eventually we did, but only to be shuffled through three different levels of immigration and then forced to wait for our luggage for a solid forty minutes.
But it’s over, and I’m home! I’m home in time for summer weather and the 4th of July and the World Cup. Actually, it would have been fun to watch the first game against England while still in Willoughby. We’ve been ragged enough about our culture, habits, and language. Time to do some ragging in return!
But until I can think of another reason to write in here, this is the end. Now if I could only figure out how to end it. A quick Q&A maybe?
Favorite country: Germany, just because my happy, adopted family was awesome (and the country was beautiful).
Favorite city: London
Least favorite city: Dublin (with Vienna in close second)
Most frustrating country: France (mostly due to transportation)
Coolest currency: England, hands-down (they call cents pence! the 20 pence coin has weird sides!)
Most ‘woah’ moment: A tie between being 10,000 feet up in the Alps and walking through a real WW1 trench… though being able to see the REAL statue from Pride & Prejudice was cool too.
Language I now am tempted to dabble in: French
Food(s) I’m now craving: French baguettes, those raviolis with the mushroom filling, and that cheese and potato thing we had in Germany
Words I’m keeping in my vocabulary: flat (apartment), lift (elevator), queue (line)
Oh, and one last bonus! An explanation about why some countries drive on the left and some on the right: http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/34094.html
FREEEEEDOOOOOOOOM!!!
After two straight weeks of pure torture, all four of my essays are finally turned in. That’s 11,927 words, including bibliographies, ladies and gentlemen. Excluding bibliographies, it’s a little less but still a lot. Keep in mind that those two weeks did not include writing only. I had to re-read my primary texts, take notes, hunt down secondary criticisms, take notes on THOSE, organize my notes, find MORE criticisms when my professors demanded more, and THEN write my papers. This meant that the average day involved getting up at 8, being at the library by 9:30, staying until 5:30, eating dinner, getting back to the library at 6:45ish, and staying until 11 PM. Fun times, fun times. Two weeks full of fun times.
But enough of that, because I’m done! I finished Tuesday, and I’ve gotten to spend the rest of the week just hanging and sleeping and reading. It’s been great. Of course, that’s also been sprinkled with things like worrying how to get to the airport to get home, trying to find a way to fix my suitcase, growling internally at the neighbors, etc. The last one was especially bad last night. Biiiiig fight next door. Tears, yelling, recrimination, the works. Of course, judging by the hallway downstairs, they had a better night that some of the partygoers. Four separate piles of vomit in an enclosed hallway with big windows to catch the sun, so it smelt absolutely peachy coming down to breakfast.
Anyways, today was awesome. We went to Sherwood Forest! “We” consisted of myself, Katie, Lynn, and Caitlin. We caught a bus to the city center where we caught another bus to take an hour-long ride to the forest. The forest itself was okay; I’m sure we would have enjoyed it more if we’d had time to explore all the trails. The visitor center was cute. It had a nice little gift shop and an exhibit with some of the props from the new movie. The others had just went to see the movie a few days ago, so they enjoyed being able to touch the props and squeal “Russell Crowe touched this!” The main thing to see in the forest itself is, of course, Major Oak. Major Oak is the huge, ancient oak tree that is supposed to be the main meeting point for Robin and his Merry Men. According to the sign, it’s over 1500 years old. Old tree. We ate our lunch there on the picnic table and giggled over the adorable little British boy who ran around and fought imaginary foes with his sword.
The bus comes only once every two hours, so we had to hurry back to the bus stop. We only took it a few stops down the road and got off at Rufford Abbey. It was a beautiful old place. The main structure was still standing, but the roof was gone and some of the walls, so it was the neatest thing. There were some cellars down below that were also neat, and the grounds were just beautiful. We wandered around and looked at the lake and the rabbits and the ducks before going back to get the last bus.
One thing that I saw on the way back from London and forgot to mention was the amazing yellow fields they have in England (and Germany, for that matter). They plant this certain kind of crop that looks like mustard, but Kim said it was… rapeseed, I think. Anyways, when it blooms, you’re just driving through acres and acres of bright highlighter yellow as far as the eye can see. It’s very overwhelming.
I know there’s more I want to say, and I’m sorry this post is so disjointed, but I’m about to fall asleep. Good night all!
I’m back in England! Woohoo! This means, of course, that I won’t be posting near as frequently from now on. The rest of my time here will be filled with studying and essays and stress and then uneventful relaxing. But before this blog slows down, I can at least tell about my last two days in Germany with the relatives.
Sunday was my second-to-last day, which means I got to experience German church. REAL German church. As in everything was completely in German. It was an experience, that’s for sure. Kim loaned me a little handheld translator, so when a word appeared on the screen I could run it through and get a rough translation. It was VERY rough, though. German’s just like any other language in that a word by itself might mean something completely different than that same word in a phrase, but the translator only did individual words instead of phrases. Yeah, didn’t get a lot out of the sermon. The music was very pretty, though. Church was basically all we did that day. It was very relaxing, just bumming about the house. We played some games throughout the week, and we played one that night. Jonathan is only 13 and very competitive, but not a pouty competitive, so it was fun to cream him when I could, which wasn’t often. I did manage to stay ahead of the entire family in Spoons, though.
Monday, we went to the zoo! It was a free zoo, so it wasn’t very big, but we had fun. There were different kinds of wild deer and elk, swans, ducks, donkeys, owls, pigs, chickens, and even some monkeys and a lynx. The roosters were actually very interesting, because there were different kinds. Some were speckled with dotted mohawks, and others were pure white, and still others were the traditional kind. I found them interesting, anyways. The zoo was in Basel, so when we were done, we just went to the center of town and visited the Munster.
The Munster is a big cathedral in the middle of town that used to be Catholic but was stripped off all its trappings when the town went Protestant, so now it’s ugly inside. The stained glass was very pretty, especially since you are allowed very close to peer at the details. Apparently, Erasmus is buried inside the church, but we couldn’t find him. When we were done looking in the main sanctuary, we were allowed to climb up the tower to the top of the cathedral! Definitely not for the exceptionally wide or tall… or even slightly wide or tall. Most of the stairs were very narrow spiral staircases barely wide enough for one person, and when the staircases were just the normal straight ones, the ceiling was often so low that you had to duck to keep from knocking your head. It was a loooong climb. We even got to climb straight past the bell and touch it. Once we got to the top, we just stood and looked out over Basel and the Rhine. By the time we had finished looking our fill, it was 2 minutes to 3 PM, so we stayed put. Why? Because going down would have put us walking right past the bell! It was loud enough in the tower, so I can only imagine what it would have been like next to the bell itself. Going down was slower than going up because there were school groups going up, but all of the walkways and staircases were technically only wide enough for one person, so we had to stand flat against the wall and watch as dozens of kids squeeeeezed past. Of course, we had two little kids in a family in front of us going down, so even once we were free of the schoolkids, we were still going slow. It was a little nerve-wracking, because we ended up being stopped right in front of the bell at 3:10. In five minutes, the bell would ring, and we were trying to hurry! Thankfully, we did make it in time.
By then, it was time to drive back to Germany, so we did. I packed that night and played one last game with the family before bed. And now I’m in London, sitting in the old London Victoria Coach Station that I’ve seen far too much for my taste. I still have to take my bus back to Nottingham where I have to figure out how to get to the apartment where my friend is letting me stay until the dorms open up, so I’ll be getting dinner very late. Oh well. It’s just nice to be somewhere where everyone speaks English again.
Addendum: Am now at the apartment of my friend, Katie #3
My last few days in Germany have been quirky ones, but in a good way. An example of this would be what we did the day after the WW1 trenches. We went to see the world’s first biggest cuckoo clock. Let me break that title down for you. It’s a cuckoo clock. Apparently, that’s a very German thing and absolutely ridiculous. You’ve got a nice element of camp with that part alone. Then you’ve got the joint part of “world’s biggest”. It’s like one of those kitschy Middle American roadside attractions. But what makes it all the better is the “first”. See, the cuckoo clock was the FIRST “world’s biggest” in the area, but it has since been surpassed by others. There are at least THREE “world’s biggest” cuckoo clocks in this area of Germany alone!
The cuckoo clock itself was actually pretty interesting. It’s so big that it’s the size of a small cottage, and you can actually walk inside to see the mechanism. Then you walk outside to the front so the lady can make it go off for you. I’ll bet the neighbors hate the blasted thing.
After the cuckoo clock, we drove to another town to see Germany’s Highest Waterfall. I’m not exactly what they mean by “highest” (maybe measured by so-and-so kilometers above sea level?), but it was very pretty. The entire day was pretty, actually. It was warm but not too warm with blue skies and a nice breeze. We hiked up to the waterfall and around the top of it and through some trails back in the park. The hiking itself was a little tiring (partly because of the thin air), but I wasn’t hot at all.
When we were done, we went back into town and wandered into some of the shops. Germans are REALLY into wood carvings. I mean, really. Anything you could ever possibly want carved, they have it. And cuckoo clocks are a big deal in the Black Forest area, so we passed not one but four “House of a 1000 Cuckoo Clocks” shops. We only went into one, but just looking at that one, I could believe there really were 1000 clocks per shop.
The day after, Kim and I went to Basel for some shopping. Jon was busy, but there was supposed to be a big flea market in Petersplatz. Boy, was there! Some of the tables were set up by dealers, and you could tell, but some were just people who had cleaned out their garage and had set up a sheet to sell their junk on. There was everything there, from used laptops to old keys to coins to clothes to books to… well, everything. And most of it was pretty cheap, too! At the end of the day, they started setting out Gratis boxes where everything inside was free. Those were rummaged through pretty quickly. I ended up getting, among other things, some old coins, two of which were from the 1880′s!
Hate to stop in the middle like this, but it’s after midnight here, and I have a plane to catch tomorrow. Finals are coming up soon, but at some point I hope to take a smidgen of time to write about Sunday to present.
What a fun few days this has been! The lovely relatives have been wonderful. The day after the Alps, Jon and Kim took me to see a REAL castle in France! It was called the Haut Koenigsburg Castle in the Alsace region. Apparently, it was a French castle that was hit pretty badly in the Thirty Years’ War and then was rebuilt authentically by Kaiser Wilhelm (because the region had changed back and forth and ended up as German at that time). It was nearly finished when it reverted back to France at the end of World War 1 and the French finished it up from there, but the main part was done by Wilhelm.
It was really neat. Wilhelm did a great job at keeping things historically accurate, so it felt like you were walking through a real castle. There were huge wine vats taller than the average man (wine is a BIG deal in Alsace) and old kitchens and swords and dead stuffed things and animal skulls mounted everywhere. There were also signs of the Kaiser (an eagle with droopy feathers) everywhere. I really liked the cannons just because they were REAL, and boy were they huge. You could really blow someone to bits with those bad boys. The turret where the cannons were kept had a beautiful view overlooking the valley. It was hazy the day we went, but Kim said on a clear day you could see all the way to the Vosges mountain range. Great way to anticipate an attack.
Once we were done in the castle, we walked around two nearby villages- Riquewhier and Equisheim. The former is apparently THE town of Alsace. It’s famous for its wine, I think. The hills are covered with vineyards, by the way. They were all dead when we went because it wasn’t late enough in the year, but I’ll bet it’s amazing in the summer. Riquewhier itself is very picturesque, but my favorite part was the Thieves’ Tower! It’s an old tower that – obviously – they locked thieves in. There was also a torture chamber, which was pretty neat. The Tower had tools like the “Flute of Ignominy” and a finger-crushing thing, but the main focus was this hook dangling from the ceiling. If you were a criminal brought to the chamber, they would tie your hands behind your back and lift you high into the air. Then they drop you but jerk the rope to a stop before you hit the ground so the weight of your body dislocates your shoulders and you’re left to hang in agony. And it would just keep going and going until you confessed to your crime. There were also several rooms with real newspaper clippings detailing the start of WW2, the Alsace boys going off to war, the occupation by Hitler and the Nazis, and the eventual freedom of France. It was really, really interesting.
We didn’t get to see Equisheim for more than a few minutes because it started to rain.
Then, yesterday, we went to see Roman ruins! Apparently, there’s quite an assortment in Switzerland. We drove to this place called Augusta Raurica (not sure I’m spelling that right) and walked around REAL ruins. There was an amphitheater where they performed plays or watched gladiator fights, a temple, a replica of a Roman household with a museum attached, and some other things. It was very interesting. I think the amphitheater made me pause the most, simply because I don’t get gladiator fighting. I mean, I understand people cheering on violence. After all, we have hockey. But cheering on someone being MURDERED? Not so much.
We also got to see pretty scenery and cows. The cows were pretty neat. On the way home, we stopped at a little village famous for their storks! Apparently, storks are good luck, so they have this little section set off for storks (and there are geese and ducks as well), and the storks are allowed to nest in chimneys and the church steeple and places like that. Loud birds. And then, after all of this adventure, we walked up a mountain. Well, we drove most of the way, but there was a ruin of a castle on a mountaintop nearby, so we walked up. It was steep and the thin mountain air wasn’t helping, but the view was great. Turns out the schoolkids walk from Kandern to the castle every year. 6 kilometers. Schoolkids. Ew.
Today was the coolest, though, second only to the Alps. We went to France to visit WW1 trenches! I’ve always found the world wars interesting, and I don’t know near as much as I would like. When you first arrive, you see a graveyard with lots of rows of little white crosses with names and dates and hometowns all facing the ridge in the distance where the soldiers died. Then, along the edges are mass graves of unknown soldiers, and below the mound itself is a large crypt. Altogether, 30,000 soldiers are buried there. It’s a place called Vieil Armand by the French and Hartmannswillerkopf by the Germans. The main beef at first over the mountain was that it was a great strategic position and both sides wanted it, but eventually it became all about honor as the summit kept bouncing back and forth, so the death toll piled up pretty quick.
We got to walk up the mountain and stroll through the trenches themselves, which was pretty amazing. The trenches are cut straight out of the rock of the mountain, so they’re remarkably well preserved. The original barbwire and the metal used for covering is still there, so you have to be careful, but it made it all so much more real. I found a piece of rock that seemed like metal, but I haven’t been able to find a magnet to test it yet, so we’ll see. I think the oddest thing was realizing so many people died right there on the mountain and then being able to look down and see the gorgeous view that they had. At the very top of the mountain, the German and French trenches are just right across the way from each other, no more than a few dozen yards at best. Talk about unfriendly neighbors. It was really, really amazing, but I wish we could’ve brought along a little old French or German man who had actually been there to describe what it was like.
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