Rothenburg ob der Tauber

When we woke up today, it was rainy with some donnert & blitzen (thunder & lightning), which is evidentaly fairly unusual for Europe. This meant that a trip down the Rhine, as we had planned, was probably out of the question. Instead, we decided to shift one of the trips we had planned for next week to today: an excusurion to the old time city of Rothenburg. [Note: Rothenburg is not to be confused with Rothenbergen, where my Aunt and Uncle live; Rothenburg literally means 'Red Castle', while Rothenbergen is literally 'Red Mountains'.]

It was supposed take about an hour and a half to get to Rothenburg from Rothenbergen, but after about 20 minutes into our trip, we decided to take a more roundabout way of getting there instead of taking the direct route on the autobahn. The Deutchers have laid out a more scenic route from Frankfurt to München, dubbed the 'Romantiche Strasse', or Romantic Road, and we our best to follow this road all the way to Rothenburg. It was indeed a very beautiful and scenic route that wound through many small towns and villages, and though we had a few mishaps where we had to consult a map or turn around and go back a few kilometers, we finally made it Rothenburg. One thing discovered on the way there, however: those who have never visited the European countryside may look at an old-style map, where the cities are laid out and represented by circles of pictures of buildings that are fairly close together [example] and think that it is an exaggeration. In reality, traversing the European countryside is much like tracing your finger across that map; once you exit a small village, you can see the next one just across the small valley in front of you, sometimes just a football field away. In Germany, its always the red roofs you can see first, and giant clusters of them, with a church or two rising above the clay-colored mayhem.

The Rothenburg we visited was one of many Rothenburgs in Germany; the specific name of the city therefore is 'Rothenburg ob der Tauber', or 'Rothenburg on the Tauber [River]'. The heyday of the city, and the period much of the historical section of the city recalls, was from 1150 to 1400 A.D.; it was during this time that Rothenburg o.d.T. served as a strategic stop between northern and southern Europe and was one of Germany's biggest cities with a population of about 6,000. It is Deutchland's best preserved medieval walled town, and this is quite apparent to any and all visitors, of which there are many; the town today has about 2.5 million visitors a year, including many from abroad. (It is worth noting that many of these tourists are Japanese, as we can now attest. There were many places where German captions were translated to both English and Japanese.)

Armed only with Rick Steves' guide to Germany, we set out on the town. We enjoyed many of the sights recommended in the guide, including a excursion to the top of the tallest building in the town for a fantastic view of the town and surrounding countryside. We also paid a visit to St. Jakob's cathedral, which, despite charging admittance, was a worthwhile experience. It seemed that every crevice was extravagently decorated, and the stained glass windows and carved wooden altars were exquisite. I couldn't help but think that this was a far cry from the manger and the first crude altars, but the artisans that designed this cathedral were doing as much for the glory of God as anyone worshipping in the first century. These huge cathedrals are just so foreign in these modern times that its difficult for me to understand or connect them with worship.

After enjoying some tasty doner-kebabs, we headed for more historical sites, mostly around the city wall. We saw the old moat, climbed up and walked about a hundred feet along the wall ramparts, and even leaned over an intimidating 25-foot drop to the outside of the city. Jordan, Dad and Cammi reenacted the intro scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, after which we all tried to avoid getting poisoned by the deadly smells in the herb-garden and old nunnery and convent. We went out the main gate of the city, where we learned that the actual 'red castle' that the city had been named after had once stood right outside the gate but had been destroyed in the 14th century, leaving only a chapel. With the castle gone, we were now offered a beautiful view of part of the city from a good distance, as well as a birds-eye view of a gorgeous valley with a stone bridge.

The medieval crime and punishment museum was our last stop before visiting some shops and heading home. It was an interesting look at justice, law enforcement, torture, and crime in Rothenburg's prime; portions were almost comical (like the hilarious Shame masks that evil-doers were forced to wear), but other parts were a somber look at the awful ways human beings can treat each other, like the thumb screws or the rack. As it was just noted to me, it made one glad that we live in the 21st century.

Now we're headed home for what we anticipate will be an appetizing abendessen couresy of Aunt Ingrid; tomorrow morning we set out bright and early for our 5-hour trip through the Deutch Alps and to Salzburg, Austria.

Final Days in Sweden and Arrival in Gründau

Tuesday and Wednesday were our final days in Sweden, as our flight was to depart at 5:05pm on Wednesday. Unfortunately, we had seen many of the sights of Gothenburg already, as it's not really a tourist destination. Tuesday, we headed out to the Gothenburg Mall and lunch at a cafe.

It turned out that the Gothenburg Mall was fairly large, but we only spent an hour there, as visiting a mall marked in a completely foreign language and more expensive than American malls can only be so entertaining. There was a Gamestop, though, and a Bokia, which was a bookstore I maintain is owned by Borders, judging by the font format, color schemes, etc. After this hour, we went to meet a representative of our church conference, who lives in Sweden, for lunch at a cafe. Before visiting the cafe, we stepped into the Christian church of Gothenburg, which was a quite beautiful church building during the 19th century and modeled after the general style of a Catholic cathedral. Until about 20 years ago, the official Lutheran Church of Sweden was the only church allowed in the country, and this church belongs to that denomination. They currently hold some fairly liberal beliefs. After our lunch in the cafe, we did a little more shopping, including at a little candy store in Gothenburg, and then took the rest of the evening off.

The next day was set aside to pack for our flight to Germany and to visit that expanding furniture store that originated in Sweden: IKEA. There's not much to say about the actual visit itself, other than it was rather enlightening to know that it is Swedish in origin, and that it is fairly obvious now that its space-saving methods and utilitarianism develop from necessity. However, the biggest point to take away is that Europe, and the Swedes in particular, are far ahead of America when it comes to being more environmentally conscious and waste conservative. For example, all the concentration on space and energy-saving devices in IKEA, including lamps that had solar cells mounted in them. Germany is also experience a surge in the popularity of outfitting roofs with a large number of solar cells, so as to offset their own energy use.

That evening, we had a uneventful and successful flight into the Frankfurt airport, the third busiest in Europe. We had a rental car already paid for and ready for pickup in the airport, and when we actually picked it up it turns out it was a brand-new 2010 Volvo V70 Diesel 6-speed. It looks like an updated version of what we in the states would call a "station wagon", which is way more standard here in Europe; its like their version of the SUV. It had literally 10 kilometers on it when my dad pulled it out of the rental car garage. I'm looking forward to riding in it on our way to Salzburg. We got settled into our accommodations with my great-aunt and great-uncle in Rothenbergen-Gründau. They have a fantastic house, and gave myself and my two siblings the third floor all to ourselves. The best part of this is that the third floor has a balcony with a beautiful view, just absolutely stunning. We then had a late abendessen (dinner) that consisted of wurst, real frankfurters, potato salad und brot (bread).

The next day, Thursday, we visited several of the little villages around Gründau. First, we went to Büdingen, which dates back hundreds of years. In the Altstadt, or Old City, the streets were narrow and paved with brick, and looked pretty much like you see in pictures, with the plaster-and-woodbeam houses lining the streets. In a lot of the houses, each increasing story would branch further and further out from the main structure; this was because while there were regulations specifying how close together two buildings could be and how narrow the street could be, these regulations did not apply to upper floors. We were able to get some tourist information in English about the Altstadt, and we went on a self-guided tour of the entire town and its various historical sites. The unique features of Büdingen were the castle, which was still inhabited by a prince of some sort, and the large dog-sized frogs located on the sides of various buildings located around the city. The frogs have some relation to a story centered around Büdingen. Like most German towns, the huge cathedrals tower over the rest of the town, and Büdingen was no exception. Another notable about Büdingen: the entire town was surrounded by an old wall that was still completely standing, including several different gates that lead to the outer city. Once we had seen a good portion of the city, we headed out of one of these gates and to an authentic Italian gelato place just outside the walls that Tante Ingrid suggested.

After immensely enjoying our gelato, we got in the car and headed in the opposite direction to the town of Gelnhausen. Unlike Büdingen, the wall that once surrounded Gelnhausen was mostly broken down, and the castle was in ruins. This was to our benefit as far as the castle was concerned though, as we were able to actually get into some of the walls and towers and climb up to some of the higher parts for good pictures. The castle in the other city wasn't explorable because it was still occupied.

Gelnhausen was also the site of two beautiful cathedrals, Marienkirche and St. Paul's Cathedral. Marienkirche was host to some replicas of very old copies of the Bible, some dating back to the 12th century. It also held a Bible complete with illustrations by Salvador Dali. This same church also had many relief sculptures on the walls, and some beautiful stained glass windows. It towered over the rest of the city, viewable from miles away.

After visiting both these small towns, we headed back to Gründau for an abendessen of Aunt Ingrid's special spaghetti with meat sauce that was just absolutely fantastic. Tomorrow, we plan on taking a boat tour down the Rhine river if the weather cooperates, and hopefully many pictures will be taken.

Day in Haga and on Vrångö island

On the third day in Sweden, we finally got the cold weather we were expecting. The 85-90 degree temperatures we had during the day dropped overnight to about 55-60 degrees and breezy. This had been anticipated, and rain had also been in the forecast but luckily this did not occur.
We had set the day aside for a visit to the Swedish coast and beach. We were told that this beach would not be what we thought of as a beach, and this proved to be true: it ended up being very large rocks that were pressed up against the water that serve as a traditional gathering ground for sun-bathing Swedes. Due to the weather, and due to it being a workday, the beach we went to was relatively abandoned.
The act of getting to the beach was interesting in and of itself. We ended up taking all three forms of Gothenburg public transportation to get to the beach, since it was on the island of Vrango. We took a bus into the city, the electric tram to the coast district of Saltholmen, and then an hour-long ferry ride to the island of Vrångö. Thankfully, these rides were fairly uneventful, even though we had three children 7 & under accompanying us. The boat ride was beautiful, however, since there were numerous tiny islands we navigated around; it reminded me of pictures I've seen of a boat ride off the California coast.

We took a trail around the southern coast of this small island; it was quite beautiful, and practically untouched since the entire island is a nature preserve. There are only around ~330 people living on the island; it only makes sense to live there when one is retired, since it takes an hour ferry ride to get there, and an hour ferry ride back. We ate lunch at a crest overlooking the ocean from the southern tip of the island, and then traveled over to the western side to see if we could see Denmark. Though we thought we saw it, after looking at google maps and the distance between these two points, I don't think it was Denmark that we saw.
It was a fairly long hike that we took, and a good number of our group took naps on the ferry ride back to Saltholmen. From Saltholmen, we headed into the city to the historic Haga district. According to wikipedia, this district is well known for its 19th-century architecture and cafes. It was teeming with people who were exploring the narrow brick streets of this quaint section of town and its little shops. We spent quite a bit of time just strolling down one particular street and window-shopping, after which we headed into a cafe for a mid-day snack.
By the time we were finished with our snack, it was about 4:30, making a long 8-hour day for the group of us. We headed back to the Brinson's house for the evening.

Välkommen till Sverige!

I'm trying to pick up on as much Swedish as I can here, mostly by listening all the time and reading as many ads as I can. I've picked up on a couple of unimportant words, such as "fish", "honey", "free", "new", "coffee", and "and". It has been eye-opening how impacted the learning curve for a foreign language is by living in a country where that language is dominant; even though I went to China, it wasn't really that helpful in learning the language because I don't recognize the characters and there is no real word association from English. Swedish, however, is a Germanic language and is therefore closely associated with both German and English; for example "alle" = "all"; little things like that make a huge difference when learning a language. The biggest things throwing me for a loop right now are pronunciations the "new" letters å, ä, and ö, and the word/prefix "farten", which is just hilarious. (It relates to speed/velocity, if you're interested.)

We had to wake up at about 7:30am this morning, which was a shock considering that we're still adjusted to Indiana time, which means we were going to bed around 5pm and waking up at 1:30 in the morning. We're slowly starting to adjust, which is good because we have big plans for the next few days. Back to the reason to wake up at 8am, though: even though church starts at 11am, there were a few of us that were going to be playing music for the service and we needed to rehearse, and those people had to take public transportation to get to the church. Since my mom wasn't feeling well, it ended up being Jordan on keyboard, Dad on guitar, Jim on bass, and myself on Bongos. That's right.... bongos. Musical talent put to good use.

At any rate, the service started at 11am, and ended around 1:15pm. The majority of the time was consumed with the sermon, which was delivered in Swedish and translated to English... this took about an hour, but it was really interesting. There were about 30 people at worship, and everyone sat at little tables that had coffee and tea.... very different from a traditional church service, and since almost everyone attending the service had a different nation of origin, a very eclectic group. It started to get quite warm during the service, and there is no air conditioning in the building; it wouldn't make much sense to have any considering a day like today with 80-90 degree heat occur only a smattering of times throughout the year.

Talking with the Brinsons and making observations from our little stay in Sweden have unveiled some interesting differences between Sweden and the US:

1. As occurs in all higher or lower latitudes, the sun is around much longer this time of year; last night the sun set around 10:30pm and rose around 4:00am. It was very disconcerting.
2. The government in Sweden is very centralized and verging on Socialist; there is a 50% income tax and a 25% sales tax, and they provide free healthcare and education.
3. However, all these taxes go to good works; Sweden is fairly clean, and the city is in good shape even though it is very, very old.
4. Gas is very expensive (about $6.50/gallon), so mass transport is dominant, along with bikes and walking; in addition, much of the electricity is generated by trash incinerators that is supplied by the waste generated by the citizens, with minimal electricity imported from several other countries. (Note that their citizens pay by the kilo for trash removal, so minimal waste is encouraged.)

These are just a few of the things I've picked up on about Sweden, and overall I'm very impressed with the system. The people are happy with their government, but yet have a knowledge of its activities and elect their officials, and don't seem to just to follow it blindly.

After the church service, the church served a meal, which basically ended up being the Swedish version of sandwiches, just open-faced sandwiches with butter. That ended up being our entire day, and after the meal we just headed back to the Brinson's house. Other events of note: I was able to take a walk and take some beautiful pictures of the suburban area where they live (Landvetter), and we explored a candy shop in downtown Gothenburg where I got a 0.5 liter bottle of "real" Fanta, made right here in Sweden.

Final note: the native name of the city is Göteborg, pronounced Yo-teh-boreh.