Day 2. We spent a pleasant day with Greg and Janet, including lunch at the Ram on the waterfront. Then they drove us to the airport, and our flight left on time at 6:30 PM. I had butterflies in my stomach all day, and couldn't help but think of my four grandparents leaving their homes in another land to take a long ship voyage to America with no hope of ever seeing their homeland, family or friends again. What butterflies they must have had!
Day 3. A very short night and day. We landed in Frankfurt at 4:45 PM, the day almost over, while it was still 7:45 AM in Seattle. We cleared customs with a mere flash of the passport, took the shuttle to Terminal One where we located the subway and made our way downtown, a short 11 minute ride. Our hotel is about three minutes from the train station. There is always a bit of anxiety stumbling around and trying to find one's way in a strange town with a limited knowledge of the language and different currency, but also a sense of accomplishment at reaching a destination.
Day 4. We spent the day on a self-guided walking tour of Frankfurt, a beautiful city (and incredibly photogenic) even in winter; took about two dozen pictures. We started with a state tourist office to plan our time in Germany. They were very helpful with books, pamphlets and information. We then walked along the Main River, crossed the old iron bridge, saw many churches, tree-lined walking malls, museums, and the opera house. The people of Frankfurt are well dressed and appear very fit. We think of the US as a "melting pot," but the racial and ethnic mix found here is extensive. After seeing numerous Chinese, Thai, Turkish, Italian, French and East Indian restaurants (and MacDonalds!) we had to ask the desk clerk where we could find some authentic German food. He said, "Not around here," and sent us on a 15 minute walk to nice place where we had excellent bratwurst, sauerkraut and potatoes. It was full of Japanese and Americans! It seems strange to hear a Japanese desk clerk speak perfect German. (Well, I guess it was perfect German; I'm not one to know!) The news is filled with Columbia and Iraq. It's hard to get a reading on German attitudes toward Iraq because I can't understand their news in German, and the English-speaking broadcasts (CNN and CNBC) are out of Great Britain. They make no bones about the French and German lack of support for Bush.
Day 5. We took the train to Heidelberg, checked into our hotel and took a walking tour of the city. Like Frankfurt, the main street is a walking mall; busy, modern shops where one can walk for blocks without the noise, pollution or congestion of cars. Incredible designs in cobblestones, and pavers. We walked up to the Heidelberg Castle-all 315 steps-and toured it. Our guide was an English speaking German, and our group of about 15 included several Japanese, a German, and Americans from Boston and Montana. The tour was not merely the castle but a running history of the German, and other related European, royalty, lasting nearly two hours. The guide was excellent. We saw the dance floor built atop the 60,000 gallon wine cask believed to be where Margy's great grandmother danced! The German people spend 8 million Euros a year maintaining this castle. Culture is expensive.
Day 6. Stayed an extra day in Heidelberg so we could visit Baden Baden in the Northern Black Forest. Baden is "bath" in German and Baden Baden is known throughout the world for its hot springs. There is no apparent industry in Baden Baden, but it has numerous upscale hotels and the highest ratio of millionaires in Germany. This is also the location of Germany's finest casino, but we didn't go in because only players are allowed in and they probably don't have any nickel slots! We approached this one wide building which was very impressive with its massive columns. A sign on the outside said "Tourist Information." I thought a building this large must certainly be more than tourist information. But when we stepped inside, we discovered that most of the front was a façade, a place for elegant ladies of yesteryear to strut their stuff. The inside was just tourist info and a "coffee shop," but oh what a coffee shop. We rested for a few minutes with a cappuccino in great leather over-stuffed chairs with classical music and marvelous artwork. What a beautiful area. We returned to Heidelberg for dinner and the evening. The weather here is very similar to Libby with temps hanging right around freezing. It snows from time to time, but there is no accumulation on the ground. Usually overcast, with some intermittent sunshine. A transportation note: In our foray to Baden Baden and return we traveled by five different trains and two buses without any difficulty despite our not knowing the language. Public transportation is excellent and personnel are courteous and helpful. The EuroPass was a great idea, and provides First Class travel which is nice with our luggage because First Class is usually far from filled. Bulky suitcases could be a problem on Second Class.
Day 7. A travel day, as we went from Heidelberg to Wittenberg via Frankfurt and Leipzig. This meant going from former West Germany to former East Germany, and what an eye-opener! Frankfurt and Heidelberg were bustling with Mercedes-Benz, Audis, BMWs and Volvos. Here, traffic is sparse and the cars small and old; mostly Opels, Renaults and Ford Escorts. Also, little English is spoken here. No English language news, so we are really in the dark as to what is going on in the world. In the west, "Sprechen sie English?" usually brought a response of "Yes," or "Little bit." Here: "No." I'm not blaming them; they know as much English as I know German, but it does make it interesting finding one's way around and ordering meals. Hotels in Germany include breakfast, and we love the food: hard rolls, sliced meats and cheeses, hard and soft-boiled eggs, cereals, yogurt, juice and coffee. We get off to a well fortified start each morning and usually skip lunch.
Day 8, Saturday, February 8, 2003. Saturday started off on a startling note. We specifically selected this hotel because it is close to Lutherhaus, a building which was first a monastery and after the Reformation was given to Luther as his residence, and is now a museum. From everything I had read, this building underwent a total renovation and reopened in October 2002. Well, somewhere along the way, they learned about overruns. The official reopening is now scheduled for March 7, 2003! So here we are doing our Luther study with a closed museum. Well it's good to have a loose itinerary. We decided to cut our time short here and return in March. However, there were plenty of other things to do on this day. We visited the stadkirsche (town or municipal church) which was known as St Mary's Church prior to the Reformation. Luther preached from this church, as well as the Castle Church (which we also visited) where he posted his 95 Theses. Both Luther and Melanchthon are buried in this church. A magnificent structure! I have often said that one does not read the Bible in the same way after visiting the Holy Land. Names and places take on new meaning after having been there. Similarly, walking Luther's ground gives me a new understanding of his person and perspective.
Day 9. We went to worship at the Town Church. The entire service was in German, so we got very little out of the sermon, however we could sing the hymns, participate in the Apostle's Creed and Lord's Prayer and appreciate a magnificent organ. Unless we missed something in the announcements, there is no evidence that "church" is anything more than worship, i.e. there was no evidence of any social organization. Tried to talk to one of the pastors after the service, but his English was on par with my German, so it was a short conversation. The Presiding Minister at this service was a middle-aged woman. Not sure how long they have been ordaining women in Germany. We had planned to go to a couple of museums, but they were closed. Infact the whole town is pretty well closed down on Sunday; very quiet.
Day 10. We began the day with a train to Leipzig, a beautiful city with large spacious plazas, magnificent gothic buildings, and statues everywhere of Bach, Mendelsohn, Goethe, and many, many others who called this home. This city is steeped in history. Among other places, we toured St. Thomas Church where Luther preached when he brought the reformation to Leipzig in 1539. This was also where Johann Sebastian Bach was Church Musician circa 1750. Also saw St. Nicholas Church where Luther also preached. It was at this church that people gathered night after night in December, 1989 and shouted, "We are the people!" until the communist regime fell and reunification took place. Another fascinating museum was the Strase building. This was the East German Secret Police headquarters until reunification in 1990. Like something out of a James Bond movie; it sent shivers down my spine! A monument to the power of paranoia and hate.
Day 11. Today we traveled to Eisleben (eis=ice, leben=life), the city in which Martin Luther was born and also where he died. This is mining country. Martin's father Johannes (Hans) was born a peasant but did well in mining copper. He married Margaretha, a class above himself, and Martin was born on November 10, 1483. The next morning, Hans walked him over to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (just across the street) and had him baptized. Luther had returned to Eisleben (from his home in Wittenberg) to help negotiate some estate matters in January and February 1546, even though he was in poor health. Three of his sons accompanied him. It was here that he presided over an ordination, preached his last four sermons, and then died on February 18, 1546. (457 years next week!) I think the most significant artifact in Eisleben for me was the death mask. Evidently it was common practice to take an impression of the dead person's face and hands, and cast them in plaster. In this we have an actual likeness of Luther's face at the time of his death, which I found fascinating to study after seeing so many different artist's portrayals of him. We had hoped to go to Eisenach also today, but time and connections did not work out. Perhaps we will catch this on our return the end of March Had dinner at Zill's Tunnel, a classic German restaurant dating to 1841. Good, but I'm getting a bit tired of potatoes and cabbage; time for a new country!
Day 12. Awoke to a gorgeous day in Leipzig. Enjoyed a great breakfast overlooking the Promenaden across the street, which houses the Main Railway Station in Leipzig as well as two levels of shopping mall below. After breakfast we crossed the street to board the Inter-City Express for Munich (or Munchen), our last stop in Germany until late March. The five-hour express ride was wonderful in our own private compartment. Munich is awesome; wish we had scheduled more time here. Would love to return in the summertime. Munich is a very fashionable city. The store windows with fashions, jewelry, crystal, etc. are impressive. Dined at Bohne and Malz, a restaurant apparently favored by the young executive crowd (male and female). I felt rather old and shopworn among this young, well dressed and very classy crowd!
Day 13. A long but wonderfully relaxing day as we traveled from Munich to Rome through the Austrian and Italian Alps. The pristine, snow covered little Alpine villages are impossible to capture in pictures, especially from a train window. Better to just sit back and take it in. Also a good day to read Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap, which in a sense combines a small town like Libby with Italy. Arrived in Rome at 9:00 PM (No, European trains are not always on time!), and took a cab to our hotel. Yes, traffic in Rome is all I was led to believe it would be. I wonder if all cab drivers love their cities this much as ours loves Rome?
Day 14. Valentine's Day in Rome. We took care of some business first; found a bank ATM for cash, an internet café to make some reservations, and then went to the Vatican to check things out and plan our time and tours while in Rome. We saw a notice at the hotel of an opera and bought tickets for the evening. It was not an opera, per se, but a performance of operatic arias. The ten piece orchestra and three vocalists (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and tenor) were superb. The orchestra and vocalists were in eighteenth century period costume. To hear Puccini's O Mio Bambino Caro, a favorite of mine since childhood, in Rome was a fulfillment. This was held, interestingly, at an Anglican Church, in Rome, obviously a patron of the arts. We noted their Eucharist service in English on Sunday and plan to return.
Day 15, Saturday, February 15, 2003. It was our goal to be at the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel at opening time. We rounded the corner at the entrance . . . and saw people lined up for a block! We walked to the end of the block . . . and saw the line go around the corner for another block. But it moved quickly, and within thirty minutes we were in. We rented a CD headset for a four hour self-guided tour, but-what is one to say?-it's too much to absorb! Any work of art by itself would be a treasure, but multiply it by ten thousand and it becomes-gross opulence? One wonders what Jesus-"birds have heir nests and foxes their dens, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head"-would say about all this. This incredible center of Christendom has, unfortunately, the ambience of Disneyland.
Day 16. A gorgeous Sunday morning in Rome-oh, how I love Rome! We walked across the Tiber River to the Anglican Church of All Saints, and what a wonderful service! The words of the liturgy are identical to our Lutheran Book of Worship, and even some of the music is the same, so we felt very much at home. And they use the Revised Common Lectionary, so we heard the same readings that are being read in Libby today! Father Jonathon has a beautiful voice, and delivered a thought-provoking homily. There was a baptism, so we participated in both sacraments. A wonderful worship experience in a very cordial congregation. We met a man born and raised in Arizona who recently became an Italian citizen; a man from Montreal who is on assignment in Rome for four years, as well as folks from Ireland and Connecticut. Coffee hour included coffee and tea-and wine and mini-pizzas! After church, we walked the Villa Borghese, a large park similar to Central Park in NYC. Families with young children, rollerblading teens, elderly matrons with small dogs in blankets-it gives one faith in humanity! Beautiful people in a beautiful city.
Day 17. After a hearty breakfast we walked downtown Rome: Piazza Del Popolo, Montecitorio, Fontana Di Trevi (Everyone remembers three coins in the fountain!), the Pantheon, Piazzo Navona and Castel Sant'Angelo. Most impressive to me is the Pantheon built before the time of Christ (37BC) and rebuilt in the early second century, this dome is 142 feet in diameter, and 142 feet high with walls twenty feet thick. Built originally as a temple to all (pan) gods, sacrifices were burned here, hence the twenty-seven foot diameter hole in the top of the dome to let the smoke out,. . . and the rain in, so there are holes in the floor to drain away the water. Building this today would be a feat, but to think of building a structure like this without computers, cranes, etc. is mind-boggling (sorry, I'll always be an engineer!). Had a wonderful guided tour (in English) of St. Peter's Basilica this afternoon. We had toured it on our own on Friday, but the guide (from England, but has lived in Rome for 36 years and conducted this tour for 23 years) provided some insightful information-with some theatrics and an obvious love for her job! A note on hotels: we have been making our reservations just a day before each stop using expedia.com and (thanks to traveling off season) have come up with some wonderful three and four star hotels within our Lilly Grant budget limits. Many of these hotel rooms would go for $200-300 a night in peak season. It's worth a little internet café time. Internet cafes range from two computers in a smoky little bar to one center in Munich with more than 400 computers. Prices range from 6.00 Euros a half-hour in hotels to less than two Euros an hour in some cafes. The keyboards are different in each country. I haven't been able to check my home page in Italy because there is no tilde (~) on the Italian keyboard!
Day 18. Took the subway (So that's how a sardine feels in a can!) to the Coliseum and Ancient Rome. Bought tickets for an English speaking tour of the Coliseum, which was worth it to learn all of the finer points about this historic structure. Being so far removed, time-wise, from the events here it is nearly impossible to comprehend the purpose of this building: this is where 55,000 people could gather each day to watch people kill other people! What kind of culture could gather to watch gladiators fight each other to the death (to say nothing of the tens of thousands of wild animals brought here from Africa to kill until killed.)? And how could that same culture be capable of the beauty of the sculpture, arches and architecture of ancient Rome? The Piazza del Venezia, the Arch of Septimius Severus (where Roman orators practiced their art), the statues in the Piazza del Campidoglio-what incredible aesthetics from people who watched people kill for pleasure. Makes one wonder what kind of insensitivity and cruelty we take for granted today. Across the street from the old Roman Curia is an area that was, for three hundred years, a Jewish ghetto. In 1492, Queen Isabella of Spain was not only financing Christopher Columbus' venture, but that year she also expelled all Jews from Spain. Many ended up in Rome and were later forced into this ghetto where, by the nineteenth century, there were 7,000 Jews living in an area of 2-1/2 acres! They had a curfew every night and were severely limited in the professions they could pursue. We visited a Synagogue and museum with an English speaking guide. This Synagogue is guarded 24/7 by Italian police since it was attacked by PLO terrorists in 1982.
Day 19. We had tickets (free) for a "general audience" with Pope John Paul II. I thought this would be a somewhat limited group. Every seat in this enormous auditorium was filled, but they kept letting people in; school groups, tour groups, etc. Groups from each country were introduced; Italian speaking, French speaking, German speaking, English speaking, Spanish speaking, etc., and the pope would respond to each group in their own language. It was a mob scene. No one was paying attention to what was being said. After reading about the 21 people being trampled in a Chicago night club the night before, I began to wonder what would happen here in case of fire or panic. We finally decided this could go on all day (at Christmas, the pope said Merry Christmas in 65 languages!), so we left. Disappointing. Took the train to Florence, about 2-1/2 hours North.
Day 20. We spent a leisurely day walking along the River Arno, shopping and visiting the Museum Academia, which houses Michelangelo's David, as well as works by Bartolini, Pampolini and Puccinelli. I awoke a couple days ago with all the symptoms of a head cold-sore throat, post-nasal drip, headache, etc., which has dampened my enthusiasm for museums and made sleep feel really good! It was our plan to book a sleeper on the train tomorrow night (Friday) and be in Paris on Saturday morning. Well, you can only push your luck so far, even off season! There not only were no sleepers available; there wasn't a seat available to Paris-smoking or non-smoking! So we booked another hotel and made plans to spend the weekend in Florence (there are worse places to spend a weekend!), and also booked a "couchette" for Sunday night! Went to a pizzeria for a light dinner of brochetti, salad and lasagna, (and Chianti, of course) and back to the hotel for ten hours of sleep for me.
Day 21. Moved to another hotel for the weekend. Margy went out shopping while I holed up with my laptop. So far I have taken over 250 photos and if I don't down-load them to the computer and write down captions frequently, I don't remember what they are. Also have much writing to do and expenses to record, so it was a good day to nurse a cold in front of the Dell computer. In the evening we purchased tickets for a Bach concert at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. It was a performance of Bach's 3rd and 4th overtures and his Magnificate with orchestra, chorus and four soloists, Peter Schreier conducting. A wonderful performance in a beautiful concert hall with superior acoustics.
Day 22, Saturday, February 22, 2003. The street markets are open. Margy thought she died and went to heaven: "but it's only, but it's only, do you know what this would cost at home?" The old leather man in me does have to admire the Florentine leather. I suppose it has to do with my anticipation as much as anything, but I am not favorably impressed with Florence. It is very crowded with its narrow streets and almost non-existent sidewalks, and very noisy with diesel buses, taxis and a million scooters! And it has a very "touristy" feeling to it. I'll take Rome. Attended an organ and flute concert at night at an old Catholic Church, small by Italian standards. Marvelous acoustics. Nice little three-manual pipe organ. The flutist and organist were both thirty-ish. Excellent concert of Vivaldi, Mendelssohn and Bach. The "suggested donation" at a concert like this is 11.00 euros (about $12.00).
Day 23. We attended worship at St. James Episcopal Church. There is a Lutheran Church in Florence, but we found no indication of there being an English-speaking service. St. James is not a parish of the Anglican Church of England, but is an American Episcopal Parish founded about a century ago. It serves many English speaking students and other young people in Florence. A rather eclectic group. The preacher filling in for the day was a priest named Julie Nelson of the Anglican Church of England, down from her home in Munich for the weekend. We took a long walk along the river and then visited the Galleria degli Uffizi, one of the larger galleries of Florence. Very large with numerous pieces, but other than a few Rembrandts and Goyas, it was primarily Italian renascence. Caught our train for Paris and had the worst experience of this trip, so far! The "couchettes" are six to a compartment and make the facilities on a submarine look absolutely spacious by comparison. There were 106 couchettes in our car, and approximately 100 were filled with college-aged Italian youth who sang and partied and smoked and partied . . . ALL NIGHT LONG! I have probably had longer nights; I can't remember one. We took a cab to our hotel, and though it was only 10:30 AM, he said our room was ready. He may wonder why we kissed him! Margy is sleeping as I write, and I am about to take a long, hot shower before we explore the wonders of Paris.
There is so much one could say about transportation, food, customs . . . you name it. Of course it is easy to be critical of things that are different, but there are also many, many things to be learned. People are wonderful. Some of the 'information people' are a bit curt but are still very helpful if one makes an attempt to meet them part way. No one has treated us with any discourtesy. Even the partying kids last night were not discourteous to us (and, yes, I could easily envision myself among them 40 years ago!). One young Pakistani man befriended us on the train. He spoke Italian and just a little English, but we communicated. He was on his way to look for work in Paris. When he told us his mother and father are our ages, I got the feeling he was more than a little lonely and homesick. A man in church yesterday morning read an e-mail from their bishop who is in Iraq visiting churches there. There are more than one million Christians in Iraq. He said their churches are very clean, well-kept and busy, and they prayed for peace. It's a lot harder to speak of war when one looks our young Pakistani friend in the eye.
Day 25. Yesterday we got our primer on the Paris Metro (subway) and today we took it downtown again. It is an efficient system; clean and easy to understand. A three hour bus tour of Paris with an English translator was a good idea; it gave us a feeling for the layout of the city and a lot of history as well. Paris is gorgeous! It is clean and open with wide streets and incredible architecture. Everything is beautifully maintained and we have found the people to be friendly, open and wonderful. After our tour we walked back to our hotel from the tour headquarters (about four miles) with a long stop to take in the Musee' d'Orsay. It is rather mind- boggling to see not one but dozens upon dozens of works by Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, et al. Of course, we didn't even scratch the surface, but it was wonderful. We also found an internet café in the Latin Quarter on our way back to catch up on correspondence. They seem rather rare in Paris. The Latin Quarter is so named because this is where numerous high schools and universities are located, and Latin is traditionally the language of academia.
After Rome and St. Peter's you would think we would be cathedral-ed out, but we had to visit Notre Dame. Perhaps most spectacular to me was the art glass; the colors and intricacies of design are magnificent. However, like the Vatican, the onslaught of tourists gave it the ambience of a carnival and made the worshippers look out of place!
Day 26. Our day for the Louvre. Once a fortress, then the home of kings, the Louvre fell into disrepair until it was restored as a museum. The value that the French place on the arts is admirable. This is not simply a museum; it is a complex of buildings housing some of the most famous artifacts and works of art in the world. One mere day in the Louvre is like a spit in the ocean, but worth every minute one can spend here.. If one spent just 10 seconds in front of each item, eight hours a day, five days a week, it would take four months to get through the Louvre! But we did see the original Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and a host of others. (And I believe you will find my image on 1, 937 Japanese video tapes!) We walked back to our hotel again; a long walk but this is a beautiful city for walking. The Seine River is grand, and the shops are fascinating. Some cellos in a window caught my eye, and then we saw the other stringed instruments and in the back of the shop was a man carving wood into the neck of what would become a violin. You don't see that every day in Libby!
Day 27. With our Europass Saver, we got a huge reduction on a first class ticket on the EuroStar from Paris to London. What a marvelous experience across French countryside, under the English Channel and across England to London, and it was truly First Class all the way! London is the first place we have visited on this trip that we have been to before, and it truly felt like coming home. Of course, hearing English as the native tongue for the first time in a month may have something to do with it too. Got to our hotel and turned on the TV just in time for a live broadcast of the enthronement of Rowan Williams as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Prince Charles was there (looking rather old) and Tony Blaire was getting a slight reprieve from the press after his party slaughtered him the night before on the war issue.
Day 28. It was about a ten minute ride by the tube from our hotel in the Kensington area to Piccadilly Circus. It feels good to be back in London again. Purchased tickets for a performance of Rent at the Prince of Wales Theater that evening, and then attended a noon piano concert at St. Martin-in-the-Field Church featuring a classical pianist from Sao Paulo Brazil. A café in the church crypt features traditional homemade English cooking where we enjoyed soup, vegetables and bread, and then spent some time walking the area. We experienced the mixed blessings of age at the theater. I inquired about senior rates and as a result our tickets were half- price and in row six, center!
Day 29, Saturday, March 1, 2003. It was four weeks ago today that we began this odyssey. Four weeks from today, God willing, we will return to Libby. Today was a down day for "chores and administration." There comes a time to deal with laundry, reservations, records and writing, including three hours on the internet (working through some snags on flight reservations). Oh well, it rained most of the day anyway. Margy put on her trench coat, put up the hood and went walking the Kensington area including Lady Di children's park, where she was not allowed in without a child!
Day 30. Sunday we returned to St. Martins for worship including communion. The guest preacher was Njongonkulu Ndungane, Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa. He delivered an excellent, challenging sermon. Following worship, he was in the crypt signing books, so I had an opportunity to meet and talk with him briefly. It was a nice day for a stroll trough Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden with its street performers and open market. In the late afternoon we found ourselves at Westminster Abbey for an organ recital and evening prayer. The Abbey is not open to tourists on Sunday, so they are a bit pointed about one's purpose there, but are very open to those more interested in prayer than pictures. The service was a very quiet one with just a handful of us in the front of this magnificent building, and included scripture and a hymn, but mostly poetry readings by the priest. Very refreshing.
Days 31 and 32. Our plans had called for a quick trip to Liverpool, but plans are made to be broken, right? We decided instead to stay in London and venture into the countryside from here, and that we have done. The Cotswolds are lush and beautiful, even in March. Beautiful rolling hills and scenic valleys. These villages were all built up by farmers and those related to an agricultural economy. Today the farming is totally mechanized, the land is owned and operated by huge corporations, and the villages are occupied primarily by pensioners (as retirees are called here) and owners of second homes. Tourism is also big business, especially in places like Bath, which capitalizes on its hot springs and Roman history. But it is the villages like Warminster and Lacock that I love. I almost expected the cast of the BBC sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley" to appear at any moment!
Day 33. Ash Wednesday. Strange feeling not preparing for an Ash Wednesday service. We had a quiet day of reflection. Walked in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. Started reading Kathleen Norris' Amazing Grace. Took the subway to Westminster Abbey and participated in a beautiful Ash Wednesday Service with imposition of ashes and Holy Communion. "Remember that you are dust; to dust you shall return." The words are more poignant when one is far from all that is familiar and with a war looming on the horizon.
Day 34. Up at 4:00 AM for a long travel day: taxi to Waterloo station; EuroStar under the channel to Paris; then Paris to Cologne through Belgium, and on to Berlin. Seems I give a lot of facts without a lot of feelings. On re-reading this journal, it sounds like one great holiday. Is it? Yes, ... and no. Sometimes this trip has been the source of a lot of stress. We have made, literally, dozens of reservations for hotels and trains without knowing the geography of the city we were going into, or the relative locations of things. Arrival at our destination often seems an act of pure grace. As I am writing, for example, we are on an Intercity Express train between Cologne and Berlin. Our Europass is for First Class travel, however it does not guarantee a seat without a reservation, which costs extra. They could not make a reservation for this leg of the trip in Paris, and when we got into Cologne we had very little time between trains and the first class compartment was nearly empty, so we gambled. However, as we near Berlin, it is filling up and I'm wondering if we'll make it without getting booted. And we got a good hotel rate in Berlin through Expedia.com, but the condition is that it must be pre-paid, so our hotel is paid whether or not we make it tonight. Yes, there is a little stress sometimes. And wasn't the purpose of this "Clergy Renewal" to become refreshed and be freed from stress? Again, yes and no. This is a completely different type and source of stress than everyday parish life, so it is refreshing. Any learning, growing experience does involve stress, in fact stress is essential to a creative life. The trick is to keep it in balance and change your type of stress from time to time. So, I think I can say that the trip is accomplishing that part of my goal . . . but I'll still feel better when we get to our hotel in Berlin! (And I didn't even write about sitting on my glasses in Florence!)
I might add that we certainly could have had this trip all pre-planned and reserved before we left home, but then we would have been into the very structured regimen we were trying to avoid. The flexibility of this trip has been one of its greatest assets.
Days 35, 36,37. And now for "...the rest of the story." The train was pretty well filled by Hanover, but then more people began to get off than on. Arrived in Berlin and guessed at which of three stations to get off at (guessed right). It was then 9:00 PM as we stood on a forlorn train platform in what was a small town in Communist East Germany fifteen years ago with no idea of where we were, and we had been up since 4:00 AM. Figured out we had to take another local train to get to the vicinity of our hotel. (Unlike most other cities we have visited, Berlin is spread far and wide. We'll not be seeing much of this place on foot.) Got off the train and called to see how far away our hotel was. "Herr Nelson, go to the taxi stand in front of the station and we'll have a van there in ten minutes!" So we arrived at one more hotel safe and sound. Stress, yes, but also a sense of adventure and achievement. We watched the UN debates on TV for awhile today. It looks grave. Interestingly, we have heard and seen more anti-war protest in London than anywhere else, except for a large rally in Rome. It has been mentioned in every sermon (including Ash Wednesday) that we have heard since we left home, but none have come down solidly on one side or the other!
Berlin is very different in many ways from the large cities we have just visited: Rome, Florence, Paris, London. They are old cities with old buildings, and you can plant yourself in the middle of any of them and see a lot on foot. Berlin, though not too large in population (3.4 million), is huge geographically. Only a dozen years since reunification, it is still two cities trying to become one, and also incorporating many other towns, villages and districts-twenty- three of them, in fact. That, combined with rainy weather, made us decide to venture out primarily by train and bus. After seeing so many ancient buildings of stone, we saw another contrast in Berlin in all the new buildings of glass and steel, granite and marble. More than 70% of the buildings in Berlin were reduced to rubble in 1945, so most of the buildings here are literally products of the last half century, even though the city is more than 750 years old!
Worship, likewise, provided a contrast to our previous experiences. We attended the new (very contemporary) Frederick Wilhelm Church in central Berlin. What remains of the old, bombed-out church with its fractured steeple still stands as a memorial of the war. Instead of a massive pipe organ and high-church liturgy, like that we experienced on Ash Wednesday at Westminster, we encountered amplified guitars, keyboard and drums, drama, a video presentation, and lots of music including a praise choir, an a'capella choir and a brass ensemble. The only scripture read in the entire service, however, was a psalm. I didn't get much out of the sermon (in German) and there was no communion. I left hungry.
We had planned to join an English-speaking tour of Sachsenhauser Concentration Camp about an hour North of Berlin, but our train took off in the wrong direction (for reasons we have yet to figure out!) and by the time we got turned around, we missed our tour by about two minutes. So we found a train and went on our own. We rode the train to the end of the line and then walked through town for about a mile and came to the camp where we rented an English language audio tape guide of the camp. Sachsenhauser was opened in the pre-war years by the Nazis for people who didn't fit the plans of the Third Reich. After the war began, thousands of Jews were brought there as forced labor and eventually executed and destroyed in the crematorium there. After the camp was liberated in 1945, the Russians took it over and incarcerated, tortured and executed Nazis and other "enemies of the state." Since 1990 it has been a memorial to the thousands of victims who died there. It was an appropriately rainy, windy, cold, bleak day as we walked back to find a train into the city and contemplate what we had just witnessed.
Days 38, 39, 40. I may be ethnically prejudiced, but I loved Sweden from the moment we boarded our SAS flight at Tegel Airport in Berlin. It seemed everyone we encountered at the airport, shops, train station and on the street was friendly, helpful and easy-going. Because Sweden has a relatively small population and Swedish is spoken little outside of Sweden, most everyone (especially under fifty) speaks another language, usually English. We got into more in-depth conversations in Stockholm than any city we have visited yet. People are filled with questions and not afraid to share their opinions. March is not the best month to see Stockholm (or any other city), but this is a very attractive city. The original Stockholm was on an island which exists today as Gamla Stan (Old Town), a wonderful complex including shops, restaurants, and the Royal Palace, among other things. Some of the streets are so narrow one can literally stand in the street with a hand on a building on each side of the street. There is little auto traffic on Gamla Stan, however, so it's no problem. Despite blustery, overcast weather, it was wonderful watching the changing of the guard at the palace and checking out the shops filled with hand-crafted trolls, beautiful glassware and tasteful art. Modern Stockholm has expanded in three directions from Gamla Stan. It is a city of much water and many bridges, and has been called "The Forgotten Jewel in Europe's Crown," but is being increasingly discovered by tourists.
Sweden is part of the European Union, but has not adopted the euro for its currency. They continue to use the Swedish crown worth about $0.12 American, or about 8.25 crowns to the dollar. Sweden is a very expensive country to visit and we were apprehensive about that, but deals can be found like our hotel that was a funky little place, but nice. It was old and furnished with authentic antiques rather than "motel modern," but the rooms were large and bright and the price was bearable. The first people we met at the hotel were a mother and her daughter from Watertown, Minnesota. It didn't take us long to come up with a few people we knew in common! Stockholm is a tempting place to shop (despite the prices!) and there are many attractions to visit including numerous museums and the old city hall where the Nobel Prizes are awarded. Traffic is relatively light and very respectful of pedestrians, a real switch from Southern Europe! And a report would not be complete without mentioning semla or fastlagsbulle, a cream-filled pastry served only during Faste (Lent). I'm not big on sweets, but this is to die for!
Days 41, 42, 43. We boarded a train and traveled 375 miles Southwest through the countryside to Skane (pronounced skon-ah), the southern-most province of Sweden and the primary region of Sweden's agriculture. All of my grandparents were born and raised here before immigrating to America in the late nineteenth century. Our hosts were my second-cousin Helena and her husband Goran. I first met Helena in the States thirty years ago, and they were our guests twenty years ago in California after they were married. Helena is a home economics teacher, which is indicative of the table fare we enjoyed. What wonderful hosts and the conversation was marvelous.
Helena drove us 25 kilometers to Ostaby where we met her 91 year-old mother, Herta, who still lives by herself in the house where she and her husband (who died two years ago) lived since they were married in 1942. I would love to have a memory like hers when I'm 91. I'd like to have a memory like hers today! We went through journals that my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather kept, and I now have a record of my family tree to 1777. Fascinating details in those journals; wooden shoes for my grandmother at age seven cost 25 ore (one-fourth of a Swedish crown), for example, and the funeral for my great-grandmother, who died at thirty-three, cost 56 crowns, including coffin, undertaker, pastor and organist! The beautiful little church at Ostaby where she is buried dates from the 1100s (it was a Catholic church then, of course) when the area was controlled by Denmark, so the earliest writing is in Danish. A plaque inside lists all the pastors who have served there back to 1546 (post-reformation).
We attended a mid-week Lenten worship service at another church with Helena and Goran (they belong to a three-point parish and Goran is Council President) where I met Pastor Hakan Eilert. He served as a missionary to Japan for awhile and did graduate work at Harvard Divinity School. He gave me a copy of his Master's Thesis on the Buddist-Christian encounter. He is retiring now (they are in a call process) but still full of questions: "Do you have young people in your church? The young people here don't come to church. What do we do about that?" (What indeed!?) It was a stimulating and delightful conversation. All too soon it was time to head back to Stockholm, but with a huge step toward one of my sabbatical goals of learning more of my family roots. I left Skane feeling very connected!
Days 44, 45, 46. When we first arrived in Stockholm, we inquired about the Viking Line that runs ferries between Stockholm and Helsinki, Finland. "Ferry" is technically correct, but misleading. They do carry cars and trucks on one or two of the eleven decks, but these are massive ships with hundreds of rooms along with restaurants, shops, casino, disco ... you name it, basically a cruise ship. These ships are very popular with locals as well as tourists. When I asked if there was a discount with a EuroPass, she said, "Oh, you get a free ticket with a EuroPass, you just pay for the berth or cabin." (The private berth was very comfortable and the cost was modest.). The sixteen hour overnight trip was fun and we enjoyed a great buffet. We had a few hours in Helsinki before boarding a train for Vaasa. Margy's grandfather, Jacob Forsman, was raised near Vaasa and immigrated to the US in 1889 at age 17. Vaasa was a Swedish colony in Finland at that time, and Finland was a duchy of Russia. We had no contacts there, but wanted to see this land of ancestors. Just as Skane looks much like the farm land of southern Minnesota where my grandparents settled, the land around Vaasa with its endless birch trees and conifers looks much like St. Louis County, Minnesota where Jacob eventually settled. There were still several inches of snow on the ground and there were ice-fishermen on the lakes, but it was sunny and people were definitely having spring fever. We would have enjoyed seeing more of this progressive small city, but time is running out, so we took a train back to Helsinki and a return Ferry to Stockholm.
At 9:00 AM Tuesday, just before the ferry docked, we were having coffee in the café on board when a woman asked if she could share our table. After a cell phone conversation in Finnish, she turned to us and said, "Excuse me but you sound like you may be American and you may wish to know that the war has started." (We learned later when we got to our hotel in Stockholm and CNN that it wasn't war, per se, but Bush's "48-hour warning" she was referring to. She is from Finland (though her ancestors are from Skane) but has lived in Stockholm for many years with her husband and 13 year-old daughter. Her husband is Iraqi, from the northern area (Kurds) and his parents and much family still live there. She said her husband is very concerned about war because of his family, but feels Saddam must go: "He has done much evil; many people disappear in the night and are never seen again." Their daughter wanted to join a protest march and her father said, "You can carry a sign that says 'no war,' but it must also say 'The dictator must go!'" Such are the invaluable dimensions of travel.
Days 47, 48, 49. The Arlanda Express covers the 40+ kilometers from downtown Stockholm to the airport in 20 minutes. We flew to Berlin's Tegel airport where we grabbed a cab for the railroad station and boarded an overnight train for Krakow, Poland. (We had a few hours before the train so we took a long walk through Tiergarten, a huge park in central Berlin next to one of the larger zoos in the world.) Our sleeper was small but comfortable. It is a bit disconcerting to have a loud knock on the door at 11:00 PM with three uniformed Polish officers demanding a passport. We had crossed the Poland border and I guess that's how they do passport control!
We awoke to a cold, drab day in Poland. I stepped out of our sleeper and saw a man I had met the night before from Durango, Colorado but who now lives in Amsterdam and was on his way to a conference in Krakow. He said, "I just talked to a friend on my mobile telephone. The war started this morning." The train arrived in Krakow at 7:21 AM and we found there was a local train headed for Oswiecim (Auschwitz) at 7:45, so we got on board. We joined a small group (seven of us) for a guided tour of the concentration camp, both Auschwitz I and II (Birkenau). Our guide, a Pole in his late twenties, spoke excellent English and was very well versed on the camp. The weather was overcast, windy and misting with temps in the 30s. As Margy said, "Very appropriate weather for this place." At the end of our four hour tour we were chilled to the bone in body and spirit.
We returned the next day and went through Auschwitz I again, focusing on things our tour hadn't covered. The weather was clear and calm, but still cold. Before returning to the camp, we had checked out of our hotel and as we did so we were handed four type-written sheets by the desk clerk that were to be read by all Americans. They were from the Departments of State and Homeland Security warning us of potential terrorist attacks on Americans and essentially saying "register with the consulate, keep a low profile, stay away from crowds and cover your back." All in all, the day had a rather ominous feeling to it and I was ready to head west again. I did not sleep well the night before. The bed was comfortable enough, but how do you sleep in a comfortable bed a mere mile from where hundreds of thousands of children and women and men were very intentionally, systematically, callously and efficiently tortured and exterminated? I awoke with nightmares several times during the night.
Days 50, 51, 52. Our overnight sleeper brought us back to Berlin (this time the knock on the door and passport check came at 5:30 AM as we crossed the border). We caught an Intercity Express to Lutherstad-Wittenberg, back where we began. Wittenberg is a lot nicer in late March than early February! And this time the newly remodeled Lutherhaus Museum was open. We had hoped to worship at the Castle Church this time, but there was no service offered on Sunday, so we went back to the Town Church (St. Mary's) where Luther used to preach and where we attended in February. Still didn't get much out of the sermon, but did pick up things like Americanish, Bush, Saddam Hussein and kreig, and I'm sure he was not commending the US. But they did offer communion, which had not been offered at any service we have attended since Ash Wednesday. It was good.
On Tuesday, March 25, Day 53, we will travel from Wittenberg to Karlsruhe, probably via Leipzig and Frankfurt, where on Wednesday we will meet some relatives of Margy's whom she has never met. That evening we will return to Frankfurt and prepare to fly out on Thursday morning to Seattle/Tacoma via London Heathrow. We will take a couple days in Tacoma at Greg and Janet's to re-set our internal clocks before we return to Libby.
So, after 9,000+ words, this is my final journal entry. I hope those of you who have read these words have enjoyed "traveling" with us, and learned from our mistakes if not my observations! We have felt up-held in your prayers and thoughts, and appreciate the nearly 100 e-mails received. We have taken more than 700 pictures that have been down-loaded to my lap-top and captioned. Some day I may get them sorted out and categorized. My entries have been focused on the places we have visited and the things we have seen. There is so much I could write about related topics, e.g. in 35 years of marriage we have never been together morning, noon and night for two months before! Yes, we're still together and have both learned things about the other we never knew before. Today we met a couple from Kansas. She has a travel agency and he is a writer, and would like to do a book on Luther. They are at the end of their two-week self-designed tour of "Lutherland." We spent hours comparing notes about cultures, hotels, trains, meals, ... you name it.
The Lilly Foundation spent a lot of money so that Christ Lutheran Church and I might be "refreshed." Has it been a success? I'm sure the change has been good for Christ Lutheran Church; I will certainly learn more when I get home. It has been tremendously refreshing for me. I have walked untold miles, held my weight, slept like a baby (except at Auschwitz), and am feeling marvelously well. From the Vatican in Rome, to Lutherhaus in Wittenberg, to the little Ostaby church in Sweden I have thought about this movement called Christianity and how it has come to be practiced and what reforms are perhaps needed today. I have a lot of processing to do. Some of you will undoubtedly be involved in that processing.
May God hold you in the palm of his hand until we meet again.
Farewell
Auf wiedersehen
Arrivederci
Adjo
Adieu
