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Germany, Part 5.

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Before I get to the Saga of Sadness known as Our Trip to Prague, let me tell you about a neat thing in Europe. Here it is: pretty much anywhere you can go, a dog can go. That includes food procurement facilities, like restaurants and cafes. One evening we went to an authentic German restaurant. It was a big farmhouse once but is now converted and because we got there so early we ended having our own room. I ate elk on a bed of local mushrooms with red cabbage and almond-crusted potato croquettes. So effing delicious.

And, because this is Germany and it was around Christmastime, there were chocolates decorating the table. Germans must never be more than ten feet from chocolate at any given time. It’s in their constitution.

Anyway, we were in our own private room all by our lonesomes when Neenernator’s mother wanted to go to the bathroom. She opened the door to walk down the hall and – WOOOOMPH!! – loudest bark ever greets her. She slammed the door shut and was like, “I’ll pee when I get home.” Turns out under the table of another family having dinner there was a half-Malamute, half-German Shepherd monster-dog chillin’. I made a point to say howdy as I was leaving. The direwolf growled at me. It’s quite a culture shock going to a restaurant and seeing a giant horse-beast hanging out under the table. But if they’re okay with it, I’m okay with it.

Also, so important! A day before we left, the sun came out! The sun. I had not seen the sun in a week. I walked outside and greeted like someone who had spent the last five years in a bunker preparing for the apocalypse. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuun. I took my camera out and got some decent pics of Neenernator’s backyard.

First, here’s the window seat looking out onto the small lake in the back. Every single other day the view was this (boo):

But this one day it was this (yay!):

And outside was this (whee!)

I was so delighted by the faint warm fiery ball in the sky I took pictures of everything. Here is a bucket of moles ornaments.

Here is the neighbor’s tree through their window.

Here’s Neenernator’s awesome grandma waving at the dumb tourist (me).

Here’s the fake egret the jerkface neighbors across the way have stuck in their lawn. It’s there because if an egret sees it, it will not come to this lake. One egret per water body. I said I would happily go over there and steal it but Neenernator’s mother said, “Don’t do that, they’ll know it was me.”

Okay, onto the trip to Prague. Neenernator and I decided to go to Prague for two days at the end of the Germany trip because, like me, Neenernator loves bones. Lots and lots of bones. The Ossuary of Sedlec is in Prague and it’s got 40,000 dead people decorating the space so that was a no-brainer. We thought it would be super-funsies to take the overnight train. When I was in Africa as a child I used to adore sleeping on the train. That would be great! Here’s what happened: you know how everybody says that no matter Germany’s flaws, at least the trains always run on time? That is a LIE. Neenernator booked us a train from Bremen to Dortmund. We then had 35 minutes to catch an all-night train from Dortmund to Prague. Easy, right? Except our train from Bremen to Dortmund was an hour late, meaning we missed our connection. We intended to be in Prague by 10:00 a.m. and the next all-nighter train got us into Prague at 3:00 in the afternoon, basically killing a whole day. By the way, I’m compressing hours and hours of drama here. Neenernator arguing with the attendant in the various train stations, us hopping into a cab in an attempt to drive down the Autobahn at 200 kilometers an hour to make the train (that did not work), us sitting forlornly on the freezing outdoor train platform for a million years at 11:30 at night, etc. It was the opposite of a good time. Here is Neenernator posing with all our luggage.

One thing on the platform I did like: they have a map of the train and there’s a string down the map so you know what car will be directly in front of you when the train pulls in. So if you have seats in car 3, you can figure out where car 3 will be. Anticipating. It’s a plus. Metro-North, take note.

Eventually we made it to Dortmund at about 1:00 in the morning. I fell asleep mournfully. At 4:30 a.m. (for those of you bad at math, that would be a lovely 3.5 hours night’s sleep) Neenernator woke me up. “Hey,” she said, her laptop illuminating her face. “Why don’t we fly to Prague? There’s a flight out of Frankfurt that gets us there at 11:00 a.m. You okay with that?” “Hell yeah I’m okay with that,” I said. “Great,” Neenernator said. “Get up. We need to catch the 5:00 a.m. train to the Frankfurt Airport. Let’s go.” We grabbed our luggage and dragged it down the streets to the main train station where we went to the Frankfurt Airport. While we were on the train Neenernator bought the plane tickets using her phone and that is why she is my hero. My adult approach to this travel debacle would be to slump to the ground and cry, but not Neenernator. She keeps cool in all situations. Hero forever. We got to the airport with about a half-hour to spare. They had already started boarding. It’s important for you to know that the Frankfurt Airport is HUGE. It’s a major European hub. We arrived at the bottom of this weird plant-shaped map where the train tracks are.

And where was our flight leaving from? That is correct, B20. At the exact opposite end of this building the size of a village. And it’s a ziggy-zaggy building meaning we went on, no joke, over ten escalators with all that luggage. And Neenernator was pregnant. The whole thing was a nightmare.

We finally arrived at Security, sweaty and exhausted and punchy where it is made abundantly clear that we packed anticipating train travel, not plane travel. Meaning all manner of beverages were in our backpacks and random nail clipper-like items were shoved into pockets, etc. It didn’t help that our security guy was a total douche. I had purchased a large ocean jasper stone that I had hastily put into my handbag and this security guard decided this was an ideal time to hassle me about this rock. “Are you intending to use this as a weapon?” he asked (douchily). I said, “Yes. On you. Right now. Enough already. I’m going to miss my flight*.” Thankfully he realized I was not a threat and we made it to our plane just in time where we had the delightful opportunity to stand on the tarmac in the rain during boarding. How this looks was how I felt.

But we made it. We made it, guys! And I got the opportunity to take a two-hour nap on the plane. Such a glorious glorious nap. Before I fell asleep I caught a glimpse of the seat in front of me and realized this dope pun.

All you beer aficionados, please note: This is not regular Budweiser. That would not fly in the capital of beers, Prague. This is a special Budweiser that is brewed in the outskirts of Prague because we are talking about a people who drink absinthe with hemp seeds in it. They will not tolerate the yellowish seltzer we call beer in this country. You don’t even hallucinate with our stuff!

Next post: Prague Prague Prague.

*That is 100% true, what I said to him. I said it loudly and aggressively. It is a miracle I didn’t get detained.

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Germany, Part 4.

Wednesday, January 21st, 2015

Before we continue on with my German Christmas, let’s look at some things I came across while driving in the countryside with Neenernator.

Trees! They line all the roads. They’re big. And old. It’s pretty awesome.

Look children, look at this remnant from the past. This is a movie rental store. See, you go here where a monk is standing behind the counter. Then you rent a DVD and he scribes on a piece of parchment with his quill which movie has been tooken out. At some point Gutenberg will show up and show the monk how to use a printing press but it hasn’t happened yet, so he still quillin’. You watch it at home and then when you’re done watching it you bring it back. This particular video store doesn’t even an after-hours slot, you actually have to come back when the store is open to give the movies back. The monk needs to be in attendance! A slot is too advanced!* Neenernator told me that TV is Germany is lame-o, therefore people rent movies. Not gonna lie, it was really fun. It made me feel like I was back in college.

Various barns around the area. Many of them have biblical sayings over the door. Neenernator has a barn on her property and she’s an atheist, so we decided that we should paint a saying over her big barn doors in that blackletter calligraphy but instead of being from the Bible it would say, “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”

It’s very windy in this area so there are those industrial windmills all over the place. However, in addition, there are old cutey-patootie windmills! I saw one from a distance in Bremen.

But Neenernator, being the consummate host, found me a windmill I could walk right up to. And hug, which is precisely what I did. They had taken the fins off the mill for the season but I was still delighted. I hugged a windmill, y’all!

So, the day before Christmas after we had explored most of the villages in the area of Ottersberg we went to the gigantic shopping mall called Dodenhof to wander around and allow me to see what a gigantic German shopping mall looks like. It’s pretty great. It’s like the best qualities of Ikea combined with Restoration Hardware and Trader Joe’s and a million other stores. You know how you occasionally hear about people living in a Wal-Mart for a month or whatever? I don’t know if I would do that, but I sure as hell would live in Dodenhof for an extended period of time.

The entrance we went in (there are a ton of entrances because this place is the size of Lichtenstein) was the furniture department where Neenernator and I were greeted by some of the most awesomely garish living room set-ups I have ever seen in my life. I have a very limited knowledge of Germans and their interior designing tastes, but based on the living rooms I’ve seen they tend to go sensible, well-made and in neutral colors. I didn’t want to make assumptions based on the three German houses I’ve been in so I turned to Neenernator and said, “Who… buys these?” She was flummoxed. She said, “No Germans I know.”

On top of being wildly vibrant, these couches were huge, like room-sized beds. Neenernator insisted I sit on a side chair. You’ll note that I look uncomfortable like a perched bird and that is because the chair was six inches wide so only about one half of one butt cheek fits on the seat part. Seriously, though, never mind the Germans – who on this planet buys these things? It’s uncomfortable, expensive, hard to clean, etc.

We eventually ambled out of the furniture section into the light fixture section (I wanted many, many things but thankfully our plugs are different here in the U.S. so I could buy nothing). Then next part we entered was the grocery section. It was enormous, the size of a supermarket here. They sold all of the items you can imagine, but this being Europe they also sold alcohol. Remember the feurzengenbowles from the first German vacation post? Dodenhof had a kit so you can make them at home. Neenernator got one. There’s a little metal clamp you attach to the side of the mug to hold the cone of brown sugar that you set on fire and pour the wine and rum over. It’s hardcore.

Outside the grocery store there was a full-size Lego Santa with reindeer that some kids were posing on.

And a forest tableau populated by Steiff animals, one of which was a large huggable cuddly wild boar, about three feet long and two feet tall. I wanted him, but Neenernator pointed out that it was probably $1,000 so maybe not. I took pictures of him, though.

On the top floor, that was the piece de resistance – the food court. It was glorious. As you enter all you see is the gelato counter. They ain’t playin’ at the gelato counter.

Then, off to the side was the actual food area and that’s all well and good, but beyond that was the dessert bar. The magical, magical dessert bar.

You see that? That there’s Jello. And in the middle, that’s the most wondrous substance in existence. Custard. You may think that’s the light from the ceiling illuminating the custard, but I prefer to think it is a halo bequeathed by the Lord on a dessert item plucked directly from the Garden of Eden.

I got myself a dinner, a basic, no-frills dinner. A basic, no-frills dinner was THE BIGGEST HOT DOG EVER, some curry sauce, french fries and a salad. Neenernator got a salad and a kiwi juice. It was meat-licious meal.

The next day was Christmas Eve which is the day that Germans open their presents. Neenernator’s family is not even the slightest bit religious so we had a lovely secular day. We went to see Frozen in German, the sing-a-long edition. I warned everyone repeatedly beforehand that I would be singing along in English. I did, doing complete hand gestures to accompany the emotions. I can now say I know what “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” in German sounds like (it sounds like this).

When Frozen was over, we returned to the homestead to wait for lasagna. I watched German television. It was a game show where Irish musicians played bagpipes, fifes and drums and then contestants guessed if they were wearing underpants beneath their kilts. After filling up on lasagna (bechamel sauce instead of ricotta, OMG) we made our way over to the tree to open presents. We had to roll two die and whoever rolled the highest number got to open their present. It’s a good technique, keeps things moving. We needed to keep things moving because there were a ton of presents.

Post-present-opening we had more food because why not? I don’t have gout quite yet, let’s go out with inflamed toes. It was dessert – baked apples, cored, with melted gingerbread cookies in the middle. I haven’t been to many Christmas dinners but I think I can say this was a great one. Mellow, pleasant, lots of deliciousness and chatting and general friendliness. Good stuff.

The next day, Christmas Day, we went to the spa. If this sounds like no big deal, you don’t understand the magnitude of this. We went, as a family, to the spa for five hours. We brought towels and books and slippers and drinks, it was a massive undertaking. The spa we went to, Oase Spa, was in a built originally as a waterpark under a giant glass dome but all the screaming children’s voices reverberated off the hard surfaces and the dome and it was achingly loud. So, because it had all the pipes and whatnot, they changed it to a quiet peaceful spa. Where everyone is naked all the time. I’ll repeat that: where both men and women wander around with no garments covering their components. I can now say, between Burning Man and this, I have seen all the penii and scrotaa and boobery that I ever need see. I have a wonderful range of knowledge about them now, I’m good for the rest of my existence.

When we arrived we picked out lawn chairs on the second level and Neenernator showed me around. There’s indoor sections, there’s outdoor sections, it covers a lot of terrain. Because Neenernator is “with child” she could only go in the most temperate of saunas and steamrooms and thank God for that because I did not want to experience the extreme rooms. The cooler ones were pretty hot, thanks ever so much. Here’s where germaphobes and people with social anxiety will need to close their eyes for a while: there are signs with the pour schedules and they say things like, “11:00 a.m. in Himalayan Salt Room. Cedarwood pour and gong. 12:30 in Nordic Sauna. Wildberry scrub.” We went to the Himalayan Salt Room for the Cedarwood pour and gong (whatever the hell that was) and slowly I realized that everyone was showing up for this. Meaning small portions of my naked sweating self was up against other people’s naked sweating selfs. It could not be avoided. Luckily I totally do not care, but a typical American would have burst into flames. BTW, the Cedarwood Pour involved pouring cedarwood-scented water over the coals and then fanning the yummy steam over our faces and bodies with a giant fan, and the Gong was… a gong. That was rung several times, I imagine to increase the soothing nature of the activity.

Post-sauna you are encouraged to sit quietly in a normal temperature and recover for about forty-five minutes while drinking a ton of water. I brought a book and Neernernator snuck a photo of me with her phone. Don’t worry, I’m wearing a robe.

Neenernator had booked me a massage, something with hot foam and I’m down for whatever so off I went with her mother for our tandem hot foam massages. First we got all nekkid and laid down on our personal marble tables, like Cold Stone Creamery but warm. Then the nice masseuse lady assigned to me scrubbed my entire body with a mitten made of cat hair. (It felt like cat hair. It looked like cat hair. Tell me different.) Following the scrubbing the masseuse did something interesting: she filled a nylon bag the size of a pillowcase, similar to the kind rice is sold in, with hot water and soap. Then she waved it in the air several times and squoze the hot foam created all over me. She did this over and over until I was completely covered. Lemme tell you something. Here, lean in, this is important. It feels amazing to be covered in hot foam. Seriously. So so good. You know what doesn’t feel so good? When the nice masseuse lady reaches through the foam and attempts to rip your body apart like bread to feed the ducks. At one point she put all her weight on her elbow which she dug into my spine and dragged down the length of my back. I thought she was trying to fracture a rib. The whole next day I felt like I had been hit across the back with a stool in a bar fight. It was brutal. I think my hands were shaking because at one point she asked if I was alright. I was honest with her, “I’m… fine, I’m no hero, I can handle this, I can’t hide that it hurts so much.” “Well,” she responded matter-of-factly, “At least you know you have muscles now.” When she had massaged me completely from head to toe (she washed my hair so she could massage my scalp), the masseuse told me to sit up, put one hand on my heart and the other on my stomach and then she threw a bucket of cold water on me. I would have imagined I would have screamed or something but… nope. It felt jarring but okay. I think my body was so grateful she was no longer acting like there was a dinosaur buried in my flesh and she was a paleontologist with a shovel that it didn’t care cold water was being chucked at me. After that she gave me a glass of apple tea and sent me back to my lawn chair to chill out for another hour or so. Now the sun was setting so they turned on these lovely interior lights. Neenernator snuck a shot of that too. She’s a good friend.

We went to one final sauna (it was packed, they gave us honey to smear on ourselves and then blasted us in the face with steam), we returned home looking like shiny pink piggies. The Oase really took it out of us so hey, let’s have another feast! This time it was fondue. I made myself useful peeling vegetables and setting the table and all that, and then we all settled in to eat three different kinds of meat that had been boiled in oil.

After filling up on delicious meats (and three different dipping sauces!) Neenernator and I packed because we were going to catch an overnight train to Prague. I say “was going to” because we did not, and I will delve into that joyous bullhorse in the next entry.

* It wasn’t really a monk, it was a middle-aged lady with an unfortunate bleach job, but it’s such a blast from the past I felt the need to go all 1100 A.D. on it.

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Germany, Part 3.

Saturday, January 17th, 2015

Verden! It’s pronounced “Fairden” and it is where Neenernator went to high school. She went there to meet up and chat with her old high school English teacher, so Neenernator’s mom took me around to see the sights of this small country town while Neenernator was meetin’ and chattin’.

We walked around in the center of town where this photo was taken as well as some of the side streets that had old buildings with no right angles. Saggy, charming buildings.

There was a sculpture in town of some horses and I guess there’s a guerilla knitting group in town because there was socks for the hoofies!

They had a big ole church and anyone who knows me knows I love me some big ole church, so we went there.

It was really interesting on the inside. The whole interior was painted but instead of being polychrome and covered with patterns it was all white with a rich burnt orange ceiling. Nothing else. It gave a strong sense of height and freshness to the place. I think they had performed a nativity play the night before because when we came in they were breaking it down.

Please note that the Christmas tree is sparse, branchwise. This was a big trend I noticed. In America the Christmas trees need to be full and bushy so they can hold up ornaments made of iron and bronze or whatever dense weighty material they’re constructed out of. In Europe the most common decoration is ribbon tied into bows or creatively folded straw, so the trees can look like Christian Bale in The Machinist and still work just fine.

In a hallway off to the side were some super-ancient ladies. I hope the sculptors were not being true to life back in 900 A.D. because these women are… strong-looking. And mad. One’s boobs were all over the place. They are not pretty ladies. But they were in excellent condition and it was cool to see them.

After checking out the church Neenernator’s mom and I sauntered over (in the rain, always rain) to the high school Neenernator went to. I was unaware that she went to Hogwarts.

Seriously, Hogwarts. Here’s the entrance hall and the stairwell.

Here’s their auditorium.

Here’s the hallway filled with local taxidermied beasties.

Here’s the courtyard where the peacocks live in the non-winter season (not making that up).

We ran into the janitor and he was straight out of a book about gnomes or goblins. He complemented the oldey-timey magical quality of the school perfectly.

After Verden we went to a town Neenernator called Fischerhuder (Fisherman’s Hood). Neenernator warned me the town would be picturesque but I was not prepared. It was adorable. I wanted to snuggle with the buildings and the trees.

Many of the houses were topped with these crossed horse-head carvings. I loved them. Very Norse.

I also liked whoever planted this hedge, alternating the yellow-green and blue-green.

The first building we came across was the local church. It’s a very old, very small church and I guess in the 1600s and 1700s there was a graveyard that got knocked down due to weather or war, so the wall around the church was partially made of the headstones.

Some particularly weird-looking angels.

Some particularly Mozart-looking angels.

Any ones that were different heights were scattered around on the church property.

After went into a antiques store where I bought a porcelain dish featuring a small child taking his friend the insect for a walk (I tried to find a picture of it online, I could not so I will take a photo and post it at some point in the near future) we checked out the Watermill. There was a little stream that went through town and it powered the local mill which had been turned into a restaurant since milling is not the thing it once was.

Oh boy! Tradition AND charm! Can’t wait.

Here we go!

Aaaaaand there it is.

See that stain on the side of the building? That’s where the water wheel WOULD HAVE attached if there had been a DAMN WATER WHEEL there (*cough* false advertising *cough*). Shame on you, Watermill. You may be traditional, but you are not charming. There. I said it. I say harsh things when you rob me of the joy of a water wheel. Also they were closed for the season which compounded my sadness.

However, not all was lost! Another facility was open! It was post-lunch so all they were serving was tea and cake, but tea and cake is awesome so we went with that. This is one of the many times in my life where I wished I spoke another language well enough to read the signs and understand them. See that sign?

If you know German, you would know that it says “Doll Cafe and Restaurant.” Doll Cafe, otherwise known as Nightmare Fuel Establishment. Neenernator isn’t scared of anything so she had no problem, but as soon as we walked in I knew that I would spend most of my time in there staring intently at the tablecloth.

Oh, this doesn’t look so bad. It’s quaint and inviting.

Those cakes look amazing OH NO DON’T TURN AROUND

THEY’RE ALL FACING ME WITH THEIR DEAD DOLL EYES

PLEASE DON’T SIT US NEXT TO THE SCARECROW great we’re sitting next to the scarecrow.

They brought us menus and proceeded to read every damn word on that menu so I wouldn’t have to look up and be in my own personal version of a 1980s horror flick. The slices of cake were enormous so they recommended that we get half of one kind and half of another kind. Then they brought us our tea and cake and it was presented so beautifully I almost forgot to freak out.

Neenernator got a blackberry cake and a yogurt and fruit cake. I got a citrus cake and a gooseberry cake. Oh my God. The citrus cake was wonderful, but the gooseberry cake… it was exquisite. I’m not exaggerating. It was so light I thought it would defy gravity and float away. I’m get a wee bit drooly right now thinking of it. So yummers.

I also noticed the art nouveau light fixtures. I thought they were abstract swirlies and nothing more, but Neenernator pointed out that little gnomes are struggling with inside-out umbrellas on the side. That made me like the lights even more.

After we had our afternoon tea like civilized ladies Neenernator went to the bathroom while I waited outside. When she came outside she was grinning. “I’m so glad you didn’t go to the bathroom in there,” she said. Apparently there’s a guy who greets you as you approach the lavatory:

And this lovely lady keeps you company in the stall.

HELL TO THE NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

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Germany, Part 2.

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

More Bremen! Finishing up with the Christmas market, there was a booth where a woman dipped your hand in wax, pulled it off, filled it with shredded wax, put a wick through it and – yay! – your hand is a candle. I cannot for the life of me imagine why someone would want this, a waxen version of one of their limbs that they could watch melt, but there’s something for everyone out there I suppose.

In front of one of the rides I mentioned yesterday was the creepiest Santa statue I have seen in a good long time. The combination of the jacked-up beard, the slender hands, the weirdly poochy pants… not a good scene.

There was a booth selling Christmas decorations and I appreciated the fact that they separated the cool LED lights from the warmer-style lights.

There was another Christmas decoration booth with a cute version of the Bremen animals in front.

I saw the real statue at some point in my travels around the town. It’s very sweet.

Because the weather is so sucky (have I mentioned the suckiness? I feel like I should mention it again) there are wonderful fire stations for you to warm your toesies.

Many of the booths have tableaus on the top part, often of farm scenes or Christmas stuff. Sometimes random gnomes or snowmen make an appearance.

There was one that caught my eye and it was certainly distinctive. What precisely is going on with those reindeer and their antlers?

There’s a big old (seriously, old, like 1400s) sculpture of a fellow named Roland in the center of town. I liked him.

Moving around the city: To get from the main train station to the market, Neenernator and walked through the former butcher’s district. See this here sign? It says “Bone Breaker Street.” I am not making that up.

And nearby is a sculpture of a man blowing a horn with his dog and his pigs. Very cheerful and friendly looking pigs, they are. It’s a famous statue so the lighting above mirrors it.

There was also a beautiful chandelier hung between some buildings. It was a lovely visual touch and added some life to an otherwise pretty dark corner.

A parked ship. Bremen is a major port town so ships be comin’ and goin’ all the time. All the other ships were modern, but this one was old-timey and charming.

Speaking of ships, Neenernator took me to her favorite part of the city, the area where the sea captains lived. It’s called The Schnoor and it is so adorable it hurts a little.

Look, a little walrus above the door to keep the sea captains company!

Some of the walkways to get from one building to another were tight.

Super-tight. Shoulder-width. Neenernator is demonstrating for you.

Gravity has taken its toll on many of the buildings in the cutest way possible. Look at the door and window frames of this tiny shop selling nick-knacks.

The Schnoor was such a wonderful area to walk around I wanted to get a cup of tea and experience it further. We stopped in a local tea shop and had some fresh hot tea with German rock sugar and listened to the street musicians outside. The tea shop had a great antique cash register.

There are stairs all over the city and since the landscape is extremely flat, people bicycle places. Neenernator pointed out that on the sides of many stairs is a railing meant for you to slide your bike down. Thoughtful, no?

The upcoming post will be about a very nice village called Verden that I got to experience in the dripping rain. Get excited.

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Germany, Part 1.

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

Christmas in Germany! I was very excited to go with Neenernator to her land of origin and spend a major holiday in a country that basically invented the Christmas we know and love. (Bringing trees inside and putting candles on them? All Germany all the time.) As I said earlier, no Krampus (boo) but also no Zwartepiet (thank Moses and all the Israelites). I noticed pretty soon after arriving that alcohol is everywhere and liberally used. I didn’t understand why until about my third day there. You know how we here in New York have winter and it’s awful but sometimes the snow looks beautiful and then the sun comes out and it’s okay for a bit? They don’t have that in Northern Europe. Freezing rain. Every day. Dark. No sun. No light. Icy rain. Sometimes hail. For months at a time. There were days, and I’m not exaggerating here, when I went sightseeing in nearby villages and I never took my camera of “night” setting for the entirety of the day trip. And when I got home I had to adjust a ton of pics in Photoshop because they all looked like this:

That is at about 12:30 in the afternoon, people. It’s a grim scene. I too would drink and invade other countries if it was that crappy for half the year. Which then leads to stands on every corner selling this:

I also was amused by how many different places were selling hot water bottles. I shut up right quick after I realized what a vital and exquisite item they are in this craptastic climate.

Despite this being The Trip of My Butt Being Perpetually Kind of Damp and Cold I had a wonderful time. Neenernator and her family were so gracious. They took me around and showed me all the things in and around the port city of Bremen. I ate more cake and chocolate then should be legally allowed, I’m surprised my pancreas didn’t tap out halfway through. I cannot thank her family enough for their hospitality.

The first two days I was there we went to Bremen, mainly to check out the Christmas market in the main square. Bremen is an old European city and you know what that means – old European architecture!

Here is one of the guild houses.

And here’s the town hall. Note the alternating red and black brick. Nice touch.

And, of course, there’s a cathedral called a Dom (pronounced “dome”).

Outside guarding the doors are some fun little critters. I think this one is a griffin killing a snake. And on the other side is a lion biting a something in the neck on top of a shattered man. Not really sure what’s going on there, but I like it.

The doors were pretty bangin’ as well, especially the door knockers. (See? See what I did there? I will not apologize.) I think the designer was going for lions but it being 1100 A.D. he may have never seen a lion, so the final result is a sheep who ran into the back of a truck and hasn’t been the same since. Good try, though.

The church inside is polychrome, meaning that it was painted with intricate patterns over the stone.

There was some neat ironwork that was partial to because, you know, monsters, griffins, dragons, etc. are a soft spot for me.

And some old stone carvings. I love the dog-faced snake.

Neenernator took me around the dom to a side door. She informed me that the air under the cathedral was very dry and cool so when they buried people there they didn’t decompose, they just dried out. Which, as you well know, is the magical way mummies are made. At some point they dug these people up and then there they were, looking very dry and dessicated.

This one was my favorite. Clearly he was a fat man when he was buried, but as he contracted his hands, which had been sitting on his corpulent belly, stayed frozen up in the air.

And this is a close-up of someone’s fingernails. Seriously, these mummies had no preparation of any kind and they were in pretty great condition.

Outside the cathedral was some serious Christmas marketry.

It is so massive that it spills all over the city. Right outside the train station was a blob of market, all blinky and cheerful in the gloomy rain.

On top of one of the bars there was an animatronic moose. I caught some footage of it singing along with “Jingle Bells.”

Primarily, like most fairs and markets, there was tons to drink and eat. There was all the beverages I mentioned before (we’ll go into further detail about them shortly) and then there was currywurst (I circled the no-kidding-around mustard dispensers):

Wild boar wurst:

Horse wurst:

Rotating steak:

Salmon being cooked on wooden planks:

Pancakes caramelized in butter and sugar, then topped with plum jam:

Gingerbread hearts:

Schmaltzkuchen (literally translated to “fat cookies”):

Smoked eels:

And chocolates that looked like tools. I bought Cricket a wrench. He said it was delicious.

Now, drinks. My goodness. One that Neenernator insisted I try was feuerzangenbowle. It’s wine poured over a stick of sugar rotating over a fire. I think rum is involved as well. It was very dark, but I circled the area where the fire/sugar stick was.

And there was a man who I was convinced was a weird librarian monk in a previous life and he was selling his own interesting liquors and wines. These two (and there were about twenty-five) are mango-ginger liquor and walnut-cognac.

What’s kind of great about Germany and most of the world that isn’t America is that people take personal responsibility for things. For example, everyone is drinking, right? And since this is a fair of sorts, there are rides where things move quickly. But there are no guard rails. There is nothing stopping you from walking right up to the moving parts of the ride at any time. And surprisingly, no one gets their arm ripped out of the socket because maybe they’re just not as stupid. Or litigious. Whatever the reason, it was nice to see.

I took video footage of two rides, actually standing on the side where one could just place one’s hand on the rapidly spinning cars if one wanted. In the first one you can hear Neenernator gleefully say exactly the same thing I wrote above.

http://youtu.be/YpeprI7rOF0

http://youtu.be/De2nsZ4t68s

Next post: further forays in the German countryside.

Posted in Random Art Bloggery, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

Two things of little to no importance.

Monday, January 12th, 2015

Until I finished my Germany pics I would like to share two random tidbits with you. One is my new purse. As my canvas purse wears out I take a new one off the shelf, paint it or draw on it or pimp it out in some festive manner, retire the ratty old purse out and rotate the new one in. This newest purse is pretty great, mainly because I found a use for a partially dried-out turquoise marker I had lying around. It turns out that partially dried-out markers are excellent for shading. They blend very nicely. I attached some sequins using glittery fabric paint and I think I ended up with a swell end product.

The second item is from a recent trip to Washington D.C. for a meeting. We were put up in an extremely nice high-end hotel with all the fancy amenities. In all the hallways were these big blurry oil paintings reminiscent of Rothko’s work. HOWEVER, in the hallway on the way to my room was a painting that is, frankly, pornographic. I can’t decide exactly how, but it is not family-friendly.

Right? RIGHT??? I can’t decide if it’s a shot taken from above of a fleshy woman’s lap, or perhaps a from-behind look at some flagrante delicto action, but something’s happening for sure. As soon as I figure out what it is I’m writing a letter to somebody. *clutches pearls, cries “won’t someone think of the children”*

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I’m back from Germany! Quickest recap ever: It was rainy.

Wednesday, January 7th, 2015

I have returned from my Christmas jaunt to Germany and I am now sorting through my not-too-many-but-still-a-lot pile of pictures. I shall be a-postin’ in the next few days, so get ready for that. I am sad to say that I did not see anything Krampus-related. In Germany and Austria and Switzerland, St. Nicholas is accompanied in a sleigh by a demon-lookin’ fella named Krampus. If you’ve been a good little girl or boy, St. Nick gives you a present, but if you’ve been bad Krampus hits you with a switch. If you’ve been REALLY bad, Krampus may put you in a basket on his back and take you away forever. Here are some vintage Krampus ads.

And some great modern takes on the legend of Krampus.

But there was no Krampus because I was in the North and I suppose he’s not popular there. Or perhaps parents are realizing that scaring the ever-loving bejesus out of their children is not the most efficient way to keep them in line. I’m not sure, but there was no Krampus. Boo.

Despite the absence of devilish Santa associates, it was a terrific trip. I ate and napped and saw churches and had a generally lovely time. I shall delve into the details shortly, so get excited for rain-smeared photos, because they are comin’.

Posted in Random Art Bloggery, Stuff, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

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