Sunday, March 29, 2015

Germans, you are winning

Sometimes I forget that people other than those related to me actually read this blog.

Guess what? They do - and the Germans are in the lead.
Our friends at Google have given me this report on who's been reading my blog in the past month. In case you are curious, here are the countries they are logging in from:

Germany
310
United States
181
Russia
130
France
68
Ukraine
23
United Kingdom
21
India
10
Ireland
7
South Korea
6
Canada
5





So I guess I had better be careful about making fun of Germans in this blog. Or maybe I'll just continue making fun of myself and fellow Americans in equal amounts. Whoever you are, and whatever country you are in as you go online, thanks for reading.

























Saturday, March 28, 2015

Four towers


Back to Hannover history, let's take a tour of the four towers.

Beyond the walls and moats of the medieval city, these four watch towers were built. They are called Warttuerme, or waiting towers, in German. Ideally situated on a hill, from these towers the watchmen could see approaching invaders, merchants, fires and general visitors (maybe tourists heading to early CeBIT conventions?). He reached his perch in the tower by climbing a ladder, which could be pulled up in case of danger. In Hannover there are not many hills to build on. Lindener Turm is the only one that stands high enough to see the city laid out below. The other three are on the edge of Hannover's forest, the Eilenriede.

View of Lindener Turm and Hannover, 1654. We have this print in our living room

I imagine that the watchman, as he waited, had plenty of time to himself. He could lean out the window, chain-smoking, wearing only his long-johns, occasionally taking a break to sharpen his sword. He probably looked just like the guy across the street from us, who leans out his window most of the day in his undershirt, smoking cigarettes and watching traffic. I suppose the difference is that the watchman did this for his job. I'm pretty sure our neighbor doesn't have one.

What I like about these four towers is that they are still standing. The original wall around the city center was reduced to rubble during World War 2, and the scraps that remain are hardly noticeable between modern banks and office buildings. The four watch towers were built on what was the outskirts of the old city and, maybe for that reason, emerged from the war mostly intact. Now they stand solemn, medieval guard over trendy neighborhoods and, in one case, a hockey stadium. These  tall towers are a reminder that this city is really, really old.

Lindener Turm
At the base of Lindener Berg, one of the few hills in town, stands the massive Lindener Turm. It was built in 1392. In the 1600s Duke Georg Wilhelm had it turned into a windmill, and required farmers from the surrounding area to mill all their grain there. It continued to operate until 1927. The tower overlooks Linden, which started as a royal vegetable garden, became an industrial suburb, and now is a haven for the Hannover hip. A Biergarten lies next to the tower, and for week or two in spring the hill is covered in bluebells. There's an official name for it: the blue wonder (das Blaue Wunder).


Lister Turm
The Lister Turm is a more fancy-looking tower. Its half-timbered design makes it seem like something from a fairy tale. The original tower, built in the 1380s, probably looked more like the Lindener Turm. The one we have now was rebuilt in 1898, in the more romantic style of Hansel and Gretel, with a matching building attached. There's a Biergarten there too, which has stood there since at least the 17th century. After a few big beers, the watchman could lose hid focus and let a few invaders sneak in. Now there are no watchmen, but there are long picnic tables, a gyros stand and plenty of passing joggers and strollers on their way home to the List.

Lister Turm was also the site of a scary event in Hannover history. In 1933, the SPD political party tried to assemble at the tower. They were blocked by the Nazi SA police force. The SPD members resisted and three were shot and killed by the SA.



Döhrener Turm
This is the tower that watches over the beginning of many bike rides for Brian and me. It's near the south end of the Maschsee lake, in the suburb of Döhren. Built in 1382, it was a military outpost, a customs station (with tavern) and a place to watch out for timber thieves coming out of the woods. It burned down in 1486 when the Duke of Wolfenbüttel's army attacked Hannover. It was restored, returned to use, restored again, repeat. Now the tower stands in the middle of the road, with a tram line running beside it. Even the tram has been there since 1890.




Pferdeturm
The Pferdeturm might be the most popular tower in Hannover, especially on a damp winter evening. The real attraction is the stadium directly behind the tower. It's the Eisstadion am Pferdeturm - the ice arena where the Hannover Indians hockey team plays. I have written about the Indians before, about going to the games and packing in to the open-air arena. But I never learned much about the tower until now. It was built in 1387 (lots of tower building going on in that decade). As in the other towers, a watchman monitored who came in and out of Hannover. Later on, a stable was built next to the tower, giving it the name Pferdeturm, or horse tower. It was also a place to watch out for timber thieves coming from the forest. There must have been a spree of wood theft going on in 17th century Hannover (I guess if you consider that would be like stealing oil or gas today...). And the rest of the tower's story is pretty quiet until the stadium opened in 1959.




I like these towers. I like them because, though they are more than 600 years old, they fit right in with Hannover today. You can almost see the watchman inside, watching for thieves coming out of the forest, hanging out his window while drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Suits, not nerds

Munich is famous for Oktoberfest. Cologne is famous for it's cathedral, Hamburg is famous for its harbor and Frankfurt is famous for its banks. What is Hannover famous for? It's trade show (not kidding).

Hannover proudly calls itself the Messe Stadt, which I would translate as Expo City, but the people in charge have translated as "city of international fairs". They go on throughout the year, but the king (or König) of these fairs is CeBIT. It is the world's largest and most international computer and technology expo.

For a week in March, Hannover is a hot spot. Restaurants are full, trains are packed, traffic is heavy and tourists abound. Hotel rooms go for four times their usual rates. I mentioned CeBIT once before in a post where I speculated about whether it would be worth renting out our apartment to expo-goers. So far, we haven't.

This year I decided that if CeBIT is what Hannover is famous for, then I should go. I wasn't interested in the IT factor so much as the nerd factor. I thought it could be a really good anthropological experience.

CeBIT stands for Centrum der Büroautomation und Informationstechnologie und Telekommunikation. That means Center for Office Automation and Information Technology and Communication.

You can't just go to CeBIT; you need a ticket. Buying one for 60 euros was not an option, so I worked my very few connections and got a free ticket through the international school. I headed to the expo center with the IT teacher and a class of five 11th graders (yes, there are sometimes classes of 5 at our school).

What did I find? First of all, CeBIT is huge. There are 5 million square feet of convention space. At its peak, 850,000 visitors swarmed in on Hannover, with its modest population of 500,000. These days only 300,000 people are coming to CeBIT, but the expo space is just as massive. There are shuttle buses running visitors between buildings because it takes so long to walk through the whole expo complex. The exhibits I saw ranged from scanners to crop sensors to smart homes and construction technology. I didn't understand much of it. And I only made it through 3 or 4 of the 20 expo buildings.

And, to my disappointment, I didn't find any robots and I didn't find many nerds. What I found were men in suits. Rather, men in a suit. The German businessman uniform goes like this: black suit, white shirt, narrow blue tie. Those who are real renegades might sport a dark gray suit and dark red tie. It was easy to spot the foreigners at CeBIT because they were not in uniform.

In uniform at the T Mobile exhibit

Definitely not a German

Of course, the men in suits could have been nerds in disguise. They could have been cleaned-up nerds or reformed nerds. Whoever they were, they belonged there and I did not. I don't know much at all about technology. I told the kids I wanted to find the Samsung exhibit and proudly show them my Samsung:

They thought that was pretty funny. Or at least they humored me.


So it turns out that Hannover is not famous for a nerd convention. It's famous for a massive international technology expo. This year they even had a live televised interview with Edward Snowden. I didn't see it. so I don't know what he was wearing. Hopefully he put on a black suit.


About Me

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Thanks for coming to my blog. It started as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, and now has become an ongoing project. I'm an American living in Germany and trying to travel whenever I can. I write about my experiences as an expatriate (the interesting ones and the embarrassing ones), and about my travels. There are some recurring characters in this blog, particularly my husband Brian and several of our friends. The title comes from the idea that living in a foreign country means making a lot of mistakes. So the things you used to do easily you now have to try over and over again. Hopefully, like me, you can laugh at how idiotic it feels. If you have happened upon my blog, then welcome. Knowing that people are reading what I write makes me keep going. Feel free to write comments or suggestions for future posts.