Eisenach and the black donkey

The last stop on our tour of Thüringen was Eisenach. It's a small town that is famous for being the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach and the site of the Wartburg Castle (if you have ever heard of Wartburg College in Iowa, it's named after this castle). Wartburg is the place where Martin Luther lived while he translated the New Testament into German.

Eisenach's streets and houses are picturesque. Its market square is spotless, its Rathaus is pink. But the most memorable place we went was a little restaurant - literally a mom and pop establishment. Mom was up front, waiting tables and pouring beers. Pop was in the kitchen, pounding relentlessly on the schnitzel and frying up potatoes. The walls were sponge-painted (in early 90s style) bright yellow. There were ceramic animal figurines on the shelves and a fake tree in the corner, reaching from floor to ceiling with a round table built around the trunk. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we saw that there was a Kegelbahn too.
Kegeln is a sport that looks like bowling, but the pins are skinny and there are only nine of them. So we were hanging out at the small town bowling alley. It could have been league night. We had to wait for our table because a jolly group of retirees finished eating before their weekly round. Mom was apologetic.

It was ladies night at the Kegelbahn restaurant, and a group of bitter-looking women, in comfortable shoes and too much eye shadow, ate at the tree trunk table in between their smoke breaks. Pop's schnitzel was delicious, and the Eisenacher beers cost less than 2 euros each. Mom made sure we had enough of everything.

There are no places like this in Hannover, but I wish there were. They got chased out by ethnic restaurants and wine bar bistros. German readers, if you know of any schnitzel-pounding mom and pop restaurants, please let me know.

At the Kegelbahn restaurant, we learned about the donkeys. The Eisenacher Schwarzbier beer mats on our table had a picture of a black donkey named Anja and a girl named Jessica. It's called the Eisenacher Schwarzer Esel, the black donkey beer. Even though the donkey is sure to catch your eye, he isn't only a marketing tactic.

I got to meet Anja as we hiked to Wartburg Castle the next morning.

Even for someone who lives in a 5th floor walk up, the climb to the castle had me sweating. Halfway up we passed the donkey station. Why huff and puff your way to the castle when you can ride a donkey? It sounded appealing but the stable was empty. The donkeys were having their leisurely breakfast (probably bread, cheese and wurst) and wouldn't get to work until 10. By the time we walked down the hill, the donkeys had punched in and were ready to go.

Wartburg Castle

Me at the donkey station

Jessica from the beer mat is a former Hopfkoenigin, the hops queen. Apparently they are looking for this year's queen. I am not sure what's required, but love of donkeys and beer would be a good start, and looking good in a dirndl, of course. If you're interested in applying, I'd recommend talking to mom and pop about it first. They'll take care of you.

Buchenwald

I don't have any experience that I can compare with visiting a concentration camp. It's not like a battlefield (where there were winners) or a memorial (which is abstract), a funeral (which is personal), or a cemetery (which is peaceful).

Outside the town of Weimar is Buchenwald concentration camp. Just this weekend was the 70th anniversary of Buchenwald's liberation by U.S. soldiers in 1945. Three American veterans who were part of the effort showed up, all in their 90s, along with 80 former prisoners.

This was my second visit to a concentration camp. The other one I saw is Bergen-Belsen, located closer to Hannover. I went there on a school field trip a few years ago. While Bergen-Belsen has an excellent museum and a few bits of the camp buildings, it mostly was demolished shortly after the war's end. Buchenwald, however, has several buildings still intact. And it's huge. Over 20,000 people were imprisoned there when it was liberated, and 56,000 died there during its eight years of operation.

And in a weird sort of revenge, the camp was used by the Soviets from 1945-49 as a prison for anti-Stalinists and members of the Nazi party. Over 7,000 Germans died there during that time.

Guard tower

The fence - several layers of spikes and barbed wire, some electrified

The buildings we could visit included the disinfection building, the storehouse where all the prisoners belongings were kept, the towers where guards kept watch, the posts that held electrified barbed wire, the crematorium complete with ovens and hooks. The rest of the place you could envision from the photos, the foundations and place markers. There were even strange, perverse places - a zoo for SS officers and their families, a brothel for inmates, a falcon yard open to the public.

Storehouse

Memorial to gypsies killed at Buchenwald

It's a heavy experience to visit a place where such organized horrors occured. I think I'm done.

I've been to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, to the two concentration camps... and each experience was a little more real. Of course it's important to remember. It's important to understand what happened and know that genocides continue.
But I don't need to visit any more camps. I'd rather remember in a way that I cannot touch or walk across.

Erfurt

Just as our cabin fever broke over Easter weekend, Brian and I got ready for a train trip east to the state of Thüringen.

We started in Erfurt, which we chose almost at random. Erfurt is old, pretty, not too far away. This is one of the luxuries of living in Europe - to hop on a train and find unique places, historical places, strange places in the same amount of time it would take to drive through Chicago in rush hour traffic.

Erfurt is a city of steeples. They point strong and straight to heaven, in case you'd forgotten that's where you should be looking. Beneath the steeples are old houses and bridges, and tucked in at a modest height is the oldest synagogue in Europe. Built in 1100, it escaped destruction over centuries. So did Erfurt - it stayed intact during World War 2.

This is the medieval synagogue

The most striking steeples are up on a hill. St. Mary's Cathedral and the Church of St. Severus stand side by side at the top of a dramatic staircase. I don't know why they were built next to each other, but it looks very impressive. At the foot of the cathedral hill, Erfurt's Frühlingsfest carnival was running, with its distant sounds of music and the rhythmic screams of people on rides.

Cathedral and St Severus

During our little trip through Thüringen, we were on the Martin Luther trail. He studied at the university in Erfurt and lived as a monk in the town monastery. At a biergarten by the river, a sign claims he once drank beer there too. You can see how Luther might have objected to the gold and gradeur of the two "bad-ass churches" up on the hill. Brian actually came up with that phrase, but I wish I had.

Mixed in with the medieval buildings are modern ones, and playgrounds and kebab stands and mobile phone shops. They are reminders that Erfurt is still a living, working city. It's easy to forget that this was part of East Germany, since you have to look pretty hard to find the same crumbling houses or abandoned warehouses we saw in Wittenberge.

We got to most of the sights in Erfurt, but unfortunately did not make it to the mustard museum. We did have some mustard, and a sausage, at the biergarten beneath the cathedral. It was museum-worthy mustard. You could even call it bad-ass.

Frohe Ostern

Easter in Hannover has a smell. It's not the smell of chocolate or a roast in the oven.
It smells like a campfire.
This is because, the night before Easter, there are huge bonfires all over the city. Big piles of brush and old Christmas trees throw flames into the sky.

Most German Easter traditions immigrated to the U.S. along with our ancestors: decorating eggs, hanging eggs from a tree, the easter bunny, Easter baskets, etc. What didn't make it across the ocean (as far as I know) is the slightly pagan ritual of burning stuff on Holy Saturday.

Here's the history of the bonfire tradition, according to Deutsche Welle:

The bonfire is an old pagan ritual and in the past peasants used to watch the fire carefully because superstition said the fields would be fruitful and the households protected from sickness as far as the light from the fire reached. Today the event is mainly a social gathering and an excuse for the Germans to get together and celebrate over a beer.

Brian and I did not go to the bonfire. We did go to German Mass on Easter. Often, we go to the Spanish language Mass on Sunday evenings. It always felt a little more familiar. But now Brian tells me he is learning more German at church than anywhere else. He reads the words to the old hymns during Mass and figures out all sorts of new vocabulary. I am a little worried that he might learn too much and start speaking German like someon. Instead of saying 'hi, how are you?' he might come up with a 'good morrow, dear sir, how dost thou?'

At German Easter Mass, you wouldn't have known it was the biggest religious holiday of the year. The pews were about half full. The people wore jeans. Most kept their coats on. The songs were solemn. Mass lasted precisely 58 minutes.

But what do you expect, my husband reminded me, in the heartland of the Reformation? This is the part of the world where drama and ceremony and flash caused a lot of trouble for the Catholics. Of course they are subdued. Of course they won't splash holy water or wear Easter dresses.

Even though the Catholics in Hannover don't make a big production for Easter, the whole weekend is an event. Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are all public holidays. Everything is closed. Everyone has the day off. The Easter bunny (he's actually a hare here) is hanging around. The Easter eggs are painted and hanging from branches. Or they were, until the branches got tossed into the bonfire.

So Frohe Ostern to you all.

Stay-cation

It's spring break time in Germany, and we have two weeks off. This year, Brian and I decided to do something out of the ordinary - nothing. We decided not to go anywhere. We wanted a stay-cation. This all sounded great. I had visions of long bike rides and projects around the house, maybe some day trips outside of Hannover, sunning myself on the balcony, lounging by the lake.

What have we gotten? Rain, wind, hail, snow. Repeat. Mix them all together and repeat hourly for about six days, and you have a Hannover spring break stay-cation.

By day 2, we were already checking out last minute flight deals. But no, we resolved to stick it out a little while longer. We looked hopefully at the forecast. We told ourselves to relax and get to those indoor projects and sleep in.

On day 4 the wind gusts were so strong they almost blew me off my bike. Fatefully, coupons for train travel arrived in the mail.

By day 5 the hail continued and pelted us on our way back from the hardware store. Brian and I admitted to each other that we suck at stay-cation. So during happy hour around the corner, we made a list of possible destinations for next week. We will travel somewhere for a couple of days. I guess staying put is harder than it seemed.

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.

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.