First Landing

Well I thought I'd begin again with this whole "blog thing." I was reading Liam's blog of his adventures in Chile and decided it's nice to hear what people are up to. It'll be a tad harder to see what I'm up to seeing as I left my camera behind. I'll try my best with words and whatever else I can scrounge together. Seeing as some of the places around are pretty well-known, it's easy to let other tourists do the camera work for you. So here I cheated...

What you see: The Altpörtel, (old portal) one of the last bits of the old medieval wall that surrounded the city of Speyer. Eventually the constant game of ping-pong between French and German occupation of the city took its toll and much was destroyed.

What you don't see: Just how many people ride bikes here. It's wonderful. Not just intense hordcores with spandex and slick helmets, but regular business suits and stylish teenagers and old grandmothers and grandfathers.


I guess I might as well go from the beginning. It all started with a $400 one-way ticket to Brussels on Jet Airways, an Indian airline which I had previousely never heard of. The entire airport/airplane experience was rather a typical and mind numbing one. I've always been under the impression that sitting in a small and badly ventilated desk droor for 8 hours, hitting yourself over the head with a brick, and eating some stale bread does about as much for the mental and physical health as a plane-ride. This time was an especially bizzare experience though. Whilst strapped into the coffin-like seat surounded by eiry blue lights and having my senses accosted by terrible Bollywood films, (and some very strange curry I might add) I really got an uncomfortable feeling of being in some science fiction movie. No person should ever make a transatlantic voyage in one night, thousands of feet in the air, and feel colostrophobic and distracted from reality. Too wierd. I have to try to avoid that in the future.

Anyhow, that fealing ended when I got off the train in my mother's and grandparents' home town of Speyer. On the Rhine, a tad south of Mannheim. I have been here a couple times in the past with my family. So it was refreshing to see the familiar church towers popping into view.

Speyer is now celebrating its 900 year Jubileum. The history of this place goes back a good 1500 years. Most of it can be found in the heads of my grandparents, and they'll gladly let you know any piece of it you wish to hear. It's hard to get anywhere fast with my grandparents because they can't help but give a tour of where you are. Everything from when buildings were burned and rebuilt to the poets and bishops that inhabited them.

It truelly does feel different to be in a place were acounted history spans back further than 200 years. When standing by the shore of north Georgian Bay, there's a much different sense of where you are, and the thought of empires and wars are not under your feet.

Amongst the history lessons my grandparents tell are the stories of their own lives, and these are the stories that are so close and give persective on life and change and how history is really made. It's one thing looking at pictures in history books. But the date, November 9th, 1938 meens alot more when you're sitting drinking a little schnapps and listening to your grandfather describe the feeling when he and his brothers and parents looked out over the town and saw the smoke coming from the synogogue. Yesterday I bought groceries in the new complex that was built in the synogogue's place. Or how my great-grandmother threw the anti-semetic school textbook in the fire in rage the first time her son brought one home. The teacher said nothing however, for Frau Ruppert was well-known and respected in town.

Just today Oma and I were having a discussion about the presence of German nationalism in German society today. The question being, do we continue rubbing out nationalistic slogans on statues and removing pre-war German literature from the cericulum and trying to drown all recolection of a stained past, or do we put it out in the open for all to see and discuss and understand how, and why history took its course?



As for the present, it's been spent alot on biking on the farmers roads between little villages and in the paths in the woods by the Altrhein. The Rhein river was dredged and straightened to ease the passage of large numbers of barges up and down the large river. Left over from this grand operation are the horseshoe curves that used to be the banks of the more meandering Old Rhine, or Altrhein.

What you see: A small bit of lawn and moat from the Schwetzingen Schloss Garten on left, a wing of the rectangular and recently restored MoscheeGarten on right.
What you don't see: The woman in the Arberetum behind the Orangery, she's hugging a pine, and she probably thinks no one sees her.

The other day I plodded around the biking paths and small farmers roads until I came to the Schwetzingen Schloss. It is an 18th century palace with quite an astounding and posh grounds. Here I've attached a couple pics, (once again, internet found). It is one of those show-off places that really does have something to show-off. I supose that was a favorite past-time of royalty in years past. Every turn there's something new. The prim French garden, the maze-like and half forested English garden behind. The Orangery, basically a green-house were they grow all sorts of exotic trees and plants including different citrus trees. There is the Arboretum. The Mosque, and the old ruins behind the small lake. Many kinds of different birds. Herons, geese and ducks of all sorts, peacocks, etc. A not-so-secret secret garden I supose. I sat on a bench and ate some bread and meat, and got rather lost on my why home. It's not a bad way to go about things really. Head out with all the time and intention of getting lost, succesfully accomplishing your goal, and finding something new in the process.

Anyhow, I best be going. I am organizing getting lost for another week or so, in Leipzig or Berlin. There's an alternative community I've heard is interesting to visit near Berlin, and a friend I can't get ahold of in Leipzig. I am heading to a WWOOFing place in Weikersheim-Nassau. It used to be an old Monestary, and now is an organic farm. It should be interesting, but I won't be going until after Easter. So I've got some days to kill... or to live really... odd expression. Anyhow, until next time,

Tscheuss