I'm home, so this blog is ended.
Love to everyone who ever listened/read/watched/prayed for me while I was gone. Thank you all very much, and best of luck to all of you in your future endeavors. Hopefully I'll be able to get to Europe again- it's one of my life's goals. Thanks and much love,
Lea
Monday, 6 October 2008
Friday, 18 July 2008
A European Entry
And so it has come to this end, or almost-end. As I write, it is dinsdag 15 juli, 2008, and I’ve 5 days to my departure. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as many entries in as I had hoped, nor as many pictures, but that will probably be remedied once I return home and have a computer that has internet on it, blip as it may. My last days here in Eindhoven have been characteristically unpredictable, with the weather fair and perfect one day and gray and breezy the next. But I’m not complaining. I’m already feeling homesick for here, and I haven’t left yet! There have been so many things I wish I could say, and describe to you, and I shall attempt to backtrack for the past few weeks to give an idea of what I’ve been doing. So, without further ado…
Saturday, July 5- A drive to Luxembourg proved very comfortable, as well as relaxing. Luxembourg itself proved to be a city of contradictions. While its modern EU buildings loom fairly high on the skyline, over 20 kilometers of casements snake underground from the time the Spanish took over the area.
The city of Luxembourg is divided roughly into two areas- the historical and the modern. Across the gorge that divides the two, there is the historical center. Housing the Grand Ducal Palace, the historical quarter of Luxembourg is indeed historical. The buildings date back years, and here they have sprawling parks and walking paths where you can stroll under the shade of age-old trees. Historical monuments to victims of the World Wars (both civilian and military) stand here, the most prominent being the Golden Lady, a gold statue of a woman at the top of a tall column, standing over two men who have been wounded in the fight. Just a plaza and street corner away, the Grand Ducal Palace stands, flags flying from its walls. Here the Duchess and her husband, the Duke, take residence with their family. The doors are guarded by several guards, their measured steps of hundreds of years showing in the wear of a path in the stones. I assume that the Duchess was in residence, because there was no entry permitted that day.
Opposite the historical quarter, across a bridge and gorge, there is the financial district, complete with tall banking buildings and (according to American standards, at least) fairly medium-sized, if not short, skyscrapers. The bus guide even referred to several of the buildings as “eyesores,” but the business area was occasionally alleviated by the random contemporary statue. For instance, one building that was in a “U” shape, with the opening of the U facing the street, was made of white marble (or granite, or even concrete of some sort, I don’t quite know), and all of its architectural lines were bleakly straight. There was no adornment, no change to the building’s harsh demeanor but for a strange, contorted-looking metal statue in the middle of the main courtyard.
There weren’t even any trees. The statue itself looked like some sort of writhing mass of junkyard demons, creatures of scrap metal and ugly texture being vomited up from Hell because even they were too ugly to be in “the bad place.” This contemporary art did nothing to relieve the building’s starkness, instead, it made you want to either leave Luxembourg’s financial district and never come back or burn the place to the ground and start again. The terrible, Spartan architecture and obscure metal sculptures continued and then culminated in the greatest (in my mind) contemporary art travesty of all. To welcome visitors into Luxembourg’s financial district, an American architect designed a “statue.” Pfah, statue it was not! Words can barely describe my disgust with the thing! There was no “art,” there was not even a semblance of art! It looked like somebody had taken giant sheets of rusty sheet metal and stood them on end. It wasn’t a statue! It was a waste of time and a desecration of everything artful! My feelings of disgust about that thing seem to escape the ability of words at this point. It was terrible. Forget tall marble statues of Classical design, look what our art world has descended into- rusty sheet metal! I am thoroughly put out of a pleasant countenance by just the memory of it.
The financial sector is not without its interests, though. There are several EU buildings, as well as the EU Court, where laws for the European Union are defined by a panel of representative judges. These buildings are fairly aesthetically pleasing, and as you drive past you will also see an international school that is simply for children of diplomats in Luxembourg. If you’re looking for elitist, I do believe that that’s the spot. The description the bus guide gave even gave the feeling of rich-kid indulgence.
After the EU buildings, there isn’t much to see. Luxembourg is just a bit overrated, if you’re looking at historical value. The only mains sights there are the Grand Ducal Palace and the casements, which make you feel like an ant scuttling around in the bowels of a giant anthill.
Sunday, July 6- Sunday was infinitely more interesting than Luxembourg. We slept in and spent most of lunch and the afternoon in Amsterdam, a city famed for its historical value as well as its debauchery. At every souvenir store you will find at least one t-shirt with a provocative red-light district themed design, not to mention the many pieces of clothing that feature marijuana leaves (from Amsterdam’s famous “coffeeshops”). But aside from the questionable morality of the place (did I ever mention that Holland was the first country to legalize gay unions?), Amsterdam is full of interesting child-friendly sights. We actually only had time to walk around for a bit and go visit one museum- the Van Gogh Museum. And yes, it is pronounced “Gogh,” not “Go.” How shall I explain this? It’s something like “Van Gohghkk,” with the “ghkk” being a throaty, gargly noise. If you’re ever curious to how Dutch sounds, imagine gargly, throaty, half-mutated German. Or you could YouTube it.
In any case, the Van Goghkk museum was very interesting- we took an audio tour and examined each of the paintings one by one. I am so psyched for the upcoming year of art history, you have no idea… Aaaanyway, we took the tour and saw some of Van Gogh’s most famous art pieces, like the painting of his off-center room, several of his self-portraits, his cornfield paintings, and others, including the painting of the Potato Eaters and the skeleton with a cigarette clutched in its teeth. Smoking is bad for you, kids.
After the delicious Belgian waffles, we headed in through the city and walked around for the afternoon. We chanced upon a choir from London performing in a free concert in a cathedral that housed a rare Michelangelo statue of the Madonna and child, so we stepped in and had a listen. Oh, would that Arizona had those kinds of churches (I know, I know, it’s impossible and would look completely out of the ordinary amongst humble Arizonan stucco huts- I mean, homes)! The acoustics were absolutely incomparable! The way that the stone arches resonate with sound is breathtaking. And the organ was giant, of course. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, all the candle-lighting across European churches had left me bereft of spare change for buying candles, so I left the church without having lit one.
We stopped by a chocolatier (one of many) to purchase a box of Belgian chocolates. There are three Belgian things that every tourist should sample in their time in Belgium, and I can say that I have sampled all three. The chocolates were absolutely stunning, but my brother ate the marzipan, so I didn’t get an opportunity to try it! I still haven’t tasted marzipan yet…
We walked around more until night fell, watching people, shopping, and watching the (rather attractive) carriage drivers who ferried tourists through the city in genuine horse-drawn carriages. We didn’t take a carriage, unfortunately, but they looked very comfortable and fun. We stopped to rest for an hour or two in the main plaza of Brugge, which is similar to the main plaza of Delft, in Holland, but on a gigantic scale. In the shadow of a statue of two former insurrectionists (research the history of Brugge), we rested and I did a quick sketch of the city’s famous belfry. After resting we wandered over to a pizza place, where I sampled the last of the three Belgian foodstuffs that one must taste with my meal (well, I’m close enough to the drinking age here, and besides, it was a taste- a sample, if you will).
After dinner we walked around until night fell, and then we drove back home to Eindhoven, arriving at roughtly 2400. So, essentially, we were out of the house from about 0730 until 2400. A big day-trip, eh?
Sunday, July 13- The day was fairly uneventful, for we stayed in Eindhoven. After sleeping in for a bit, the family awoke and trudged out to the Living Museum here in Eindhoven. Essentially it’s like a village that lives in the middle ages.
It’s a rural, permanent Renaissance Festival (for you Arizonans), supporting about 30 to 40 permanent villagers and maybe 15-20 non-villager actors. Of course they aren’t a sort of cult or anything, they just prefer to live that way. In any case, it was quaint and enjoyable, what we understood. It was entirely in Dutch as well, so there was a bit of a downside to that… Anyhow, it was nice, and the weapons displays were interesting and amusing (and again, in Dutch, so there wasn’t much I could understand). 
After that, we left for the apartment and had an altogether restful weekend. I think that we’ve only been in town for… lessee, maybe half of our weekends? I know that we did most of our outings on the weekends, since my dad has work on weekdays… Anyhow, to tie up a few loose ends, I shall include this previously written but not included blog entry:
Eindhoven:
Eindhoven is a business city. Not famous on the world map for anything in particular, it still has its own charm and pleasant sights. It, like all of the other cities in Holland, is laced with red bicycle lanes, bus lanes, and car lanes, all passing dangerously close to and across one another. I can’t say I’ve lived the life of a native, nor have I completely lived the life of a tourist- my experiences here have been something in the nebulous in-between. I never really wore anything that was fashionably “in” here, but I could pass as a generally eccentrically-clad person: I’ve been addressed in Dutch on many occasions by passersby, solicitors, and sales clerks. So I didn’t do too bad, I think.
Eindhoven is something like, well, the closest I could come to describing it would be as a less touristy San Francisco. It has its clubs, its shopping, and even its rural areas, and some history on the edges, too. Literally on the edges- manor houses that have been here for generations lace the town’s outskirts on sprawling, overgrown estates. Eindhoven, of course, has the almost-requisite number of old churches, but not many people attend them any more. There are plenty of bars and clubs for a fairly interesting night life, and the shopping isn’t too bad. The streets are clean, the people are civil, and only now and again you get missed by the occasional speeding scooter in the bike lane.
There are three lanes here in high use- bicycle lanes, bus lanes, and general traffic (car) lanes. Bicycle lanes are wide (I know I’ve described them before) and wide enough to even be mistaken for car lanes some times. Fortunately, they are identified by their red-clay colored asphalt. Bike lanes are traversed by scooters, bicycles, and other variations of motorized cycle. They generally run in the same directions car lanes do, but they have their own street lights and stops. Bus lanes are the real wild-cards. Half the time you don’t know which direction they’re going in, and more often then not they seem to go the opposite way that the car lanes go. The buses here are just as big as busses in the states (as opposed to US car vs. European car size ratios), so you have to be very careful to watch both sides of the road before crossing the road.
Speaking of crossing the road, jaywalking is generally ignored. When the cars are paused or not in sight, feel free to cross at the nearest crosswalk or dip in the pavement. The price is on your own head if you need major amputation or kill yourself. In Europe people take the pedestrian crossing lights as more of a suggestion and less of a requirement. Of course there are people who actually will wait for the light to change, even if it takes ten minutes (I’m exaggerating a bit) of standing in front of a completely empty street. I don’t think anything could quite compare to jaywalking Parisian streets, though. Now that’s exhilarating! They ought to make souvenir t-shirts that say “I jaywalked in Paris and survived!”
Anyhow, yes. That’s the general bustle of the city. There’s a park if you want to walk down there, there’s stuff to shop around and in if you’re bored, and there are plenty of benches for intrepid bicyclists or pedestrians who need to catch their breaths. Eindhoven’s great. ^^
That’s the general summation of my most interesting parts of my trip. Most of our bags are packed and almost ready to go, and I’m feeling fairly homesick for Eindhoven without even leaving! Today (I went to sleep in the middle of writing this blog entry and its now woensdag 16 juli) is a typical drizzly and gray Dutch day, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. The red cobbles are slick with rain, puddles of water lurking where you’d least expect them. The sky is solid, matte gray, devoid of depth or distinguishable cloud texture (though one knows that it’s all gray clouds), and there’s a slight breeze outside. It is absolutely wonderful. If it weren’t for… well, a couple things, I’d love to live here. I know, I know, I’m crazy for saying that, but still.
For all that I’ve given Holland a bad rap, its still a great country. The people are fairly nice (what I’ve seen of them- my father tells me that prejudice can get pretty bad in some areas), the weather is wet and rainy (you know you’re an Arizonan when: you enjoy wet and rainy!), the city houses are crammed all together and everybody uses bicycles, and… I just love this place! Europe is absolutely fantastic. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back, but returning is going to be one of my dreams and goals. Nothing can really compare, in the States, not really, with regards to sheer amounts of history and literary value. Just thinking about all the people, all the great thinkers, philosophers, and writers that walked where I had gone makes me absolutely dizzy! There are so many things I haven’t been able to talk about that I haven’t had the opportunity to, so maybe one day I’ll be able to resurrect this blog and put it all down. But I think this is going to be my last in-Europe entry, so I’m going to get as much down as possible because for some reason, in Arizona it isn’t just the same. I’ll put up a returning to AZ entry later on. My thanks go out to all of you who stuck with me, prayed for me, and read all of these crazy entries. I don’t think this experience would have been quite the same if I hadn’t had all you wonderful people to talk to, think about, and write to. I hope all of you had an amazing, wonderful summer, and,
Farewells upon thine heads,
Gabby
Saturday, July 5- A drive to Luxembourg proved very comfortable, as well as relaxing. Luxembourg itself proved to be a city of contradictions. While its modern EU buildings loom fairly high on the skyline, over 20 kilometers of casements snake underground from the time the Spanish took over the area.
The city of Luxembourg is divided roughly into two areas- the historical and the modern. Across the gorge that divides the two, there is the historical center. Housing the Grand Ducal Palace, the historical quarter of Luxembourg is indeed historical. The buildings date back years, and here they have sprawling parks and walking paths where you can stroll under the shade of age-old trees. Historical monuments to victims of the World Wars (both civilian and military) stand here, the most prominent being the Golden Lady, a gold statue of a woman at the top of a tall column, standing over two men who have been wounded in the fight. Just a plaza and street corner away, the Grand Ducal Palace stands, flags flying from its walls. Here the Duchess and her husband, the Duke, take residence with their family. The doors are guarded by several guards, their measured steps of hundreds of years showing in the wear of a path in the stones. I assume that the Duchess was in residence, because there was no entry permitted that day.Opposite the historical quarter, across a bridge and gorge, there is the financial district, complete with tall banking buildings and (according to American standards, at least) fairly medium-sized, if not short, skyscrapers. The bus guide even referred to several of the buildings as “eyesores,” but the business area was occasionally alleviated by the random contemporary statue. For instance, one building that was in a “U” shape, with the opening of the U facing the street, was made of white marble (or granite, or even concrete of some sort, I don’t quite know), and all of its architectural lines were bleakly straight. There was no adornment, no change to the building’s harsh demeanor but for a strange, contorted-looking metal statue in the middle of the main courtyard.
There weren’t even any trees. The statue itself looked like some sort of writhing mass of junkyard demons, creatures of scrap metal and ugly texture being vomited up from Hell because even they were too ugly to be in “the bad place.” This contemporary art did nothing to relieve the building’s starkness, instead, it made you want to either leave Luxembourg’s financial district and never come back or burn the place to the ground and start again. The terrible, Spartan architecture and obscure metal sculptures continued and then culminated in the greatest (in my mind) contemporary art travesty of all. To welcome visitors into Luxembourg’s financial district, an American architect designed a “statue.” Pfah, statue it was not! Words can barely describe my disgust with the thing! There was no “art,” there was not even a semblance of art! It looked like somebody had taken giant sheets of rusty sheet metal and stood them on end. It wasn’t a statue! It was a waste of time and a desecration of everything artful! My feelings of disgust about that thing seem to escape the ability of words at this point. It was terrible. Forget tall marble statues of Classical design, look what our art world has descended into- rusty sheet metal! I am thoroughly put out of a pleasant countenance by just the memory of it.
The financial sector is not without its interests, though. There are several EU buildings, as well as the EU Court, where laws for the European Union are defined by a panel of representative judges. These buildings are fairly aesthetically pleasing, and as you drive past you will also see an international school that is simply for children of diplomats in Luxembourg. If you’re looking for elitist, I do believe that that’s the spot. The description the bus guide gave even gave the feeling of rich-kid indulgence.
After the EU buildings, there isn’t much to see. Luxembourg is just a bit overrated, if you’re looking at historical value. The only mains sights there are the Grand Ducal Palace and the casements, which make you feel like an ant scuttling around in the bowels of a giant anthill.
Sunday, July 6- Sunday was infinitely more interesting than Luxembourg. We slept in and spent most of lunch and the afternoon in Amsterdam, a city famed for its historical value as well as its debauchery. At every souvenir store you will find at least one t-shirt with a provocative red-light district themed design, not to mention the many pieces of clothing that feature marijuana leaves (from Amsterdam’s famous “coffeeshops”). But aside from the questionable morality of the place (did I ever mention that Holland was the first country to legalize gay unions?), Amsterdam is full of interesting child-friendly sights. We actually only had time to walk around for a bit and go visit one museum- the Van Gogh Museum. And yes, it is pronounced “Gogh,” not “Go.” How shall I explain this? It’s something like “Van Gohghkk,” with the “ghkk” being a throaty, gargly noise. If you’re ever curious to how Dutch sounds, imagine gargly, throaty, half-mutated German. Or you could YouTube it.
In any case, the Van Goghkk museum was very interesting- we took an audio tour and examined each of the paintings one by one. I am so psyched for the upcoming year of art history, you have no idea… Aaaanyway, we took the tour and saw some of Van Gogh’s most famous art pieces, like the painting of his off-center room, several of his self-portraits, his cornfield paintings, and others, including the painting of the Potato Eaters and the skeleton with a cigarette clutched in its teeth. Smoking is bad for you, kids.
After wandering the more reputable corners of Amsterdam for a bit, we headed home for another week of fairly dreary Eindhoven life before the weekend.
Saturday, July 12- Saturday was taken up by a day trip to Brugge, Belgium. Let me say that, short of Paris, it was one of my most enjoyable gastronomic experiences ever. We arrived in Brugge around 0900, and walked around until the 1000 canal boat ride. Brugge is aptly called “the Venice of the North” because of the picturesque historical buildings and friendly, clean canal system.
We took the canal tour past many of Brugge’s historical sites, including the old Palace of Justice (rough translation) as well as past the Lake of Love (that’s the name, no joke), which is renowned for its beauty and romance. Swans would occasionally glide in front of and around the canal boats, and they were singularly beautiful and powerful birds. Ducks were also on the canal too, brown, homely little things that stoically held their ground in the face of the swans’ glamour. Of course, the swanlings were gawky big things, with gray fuzzy down everywhere and bony legs. They were very cute. ^^
Our canal tour was conducted in four languages, the tour guide rattling off each language quickly
and competently- French, Dutch, English, and Spanish. Spanish may sound odd, but Brugge was briefly occupied by the Spanish for a century a while ago, and was also named a city of interest by UNESCO in the same year a Spanish city was named one. So there are a fair number of Spanish tourists. Of course, Brugge is also the resting place of (supposedly) a vial of Christ’s blood. In a giant golden shrine in one of the town’s three or four cathedrals is a tiny vial of blood brought back by the Duke/Lord/OtherHonoraryTitleICan’tRemember of Alsace after the Second Crusade. Personally I highly doubt the credibility of that claim, but ah, to each their own.
Saturday, July 12- Saturday was taken up by a day trip to Brugge, Belgium. Let me say that, short of Paris, it was one of my most enjoyable gastronomic experiences ever. We arrived in Brugge around 0900, and walked around until the 1000 canal boat ride. Brugge is aptly called “the Venice of the North” because of the picturesque historical buildings and friendly, clean canal system.
We took the canal tour past many of Brugge’s historical sites, including the old Palace of Justice (rough translation) as well as past the Lake of Love (that’s the name, no joke), which is renowned for its beauty and romance. Swans would occasionally glide in front of and around the canal boats, and they were singularly beautiful and powerful birds. Ducks were also on the canal too, brown, homely little things that stoically held their ground in the face of the swans’ glamour. Of course, the swanlings were gawky big things, with gray fuzzy down everywhere and bony legs. They were very cute. ^^
Our canal tour was conducted in four languages, the tour guide rattling off each language quickly
and competently- French, Dutch, English, and Spanish. Spanish may sound odd, but Brugge was briefly occupied by the Spanish for a century a while ago, and was also named a city of interest by UNESCO in the same year a Spanish city was named one. So there are a fair number of Spanish tourists. Of course, Brugge is also the resting place of (supposedly) a vial of Christ’s blood. In a giant golden shrine in one of the town’s three or four cathedrals is a tiny vial of blood brought back by the Duke/Lord/OtherHonoraryTitleICan’tRemember of Alsace after the Second Crusade. Personally I highly doubt the credibility of that claim, but ah, to each their own. Anyway, I finally remembered the name of the other group of people who live in Belgium. It’s the Flemish and the Walloons! Walloons! Though I can’t recall which spoke French and which Dutch… I believe that the Walloons spoke Dutch and the Flemish French… In any case, yes, our tour was conducted in a pleasant and timely fashion, and afterwards we went for brunch.
When in Belgium, do as the Belgians (or Flemish/Walloons) do, so guess what we just had to eat? Sitting in a tiny café called the Miramar, we dined on delicious, genuine, original Belgian waffles! My goodness, nothing can quite compare to Belgian waffles. Well, REAL Belgian waffles. Crispy golden on the outside and with a perfectly soft interior, these waffles were art on a plate. I managed to sneak one in on my parents and order a waffle with ice cream and chocolate saus. Pardon me, sauce. It was so good that I ordered another, this time with sugar and butter. My god, were those things wonderful. Oh, don’t worry, they weren’t giant waffles, and because they were fairly light you needed two or three to fill you up for a day of walking. My father also managed to light his napkin on fire, but that’s another story for another time.
When in Belgium, do as the Belgians (or Flemish/Walloons) do, so guess what we just had to eat? Sitting in a tiny café called the Miramar, we dined on delicious, genuine, original Belgian waffles! My goodness, nothing can quite compare to Belgian waffles. Well, REAL Belgian waffles. Crispy golden on the outside and with a perfectly soft interior, these waffles were art on a plate. I managed to sneak one in on my parents and order a waffle with ice cream and chocolate saus. Pardon me, sauce. It was so good that I ordered another, this time with sugar and butter. My god, were those things wonderful. Oh, don’t worry, they weren’t giant waffles, and because they were fairly light you needed two or three to fill you up for a day of walking. My father also managed to light his napkin on fire, but that’s another story for another time.
After the delicious Belgian waffles, we headed in through the city and walked around for the afternoon. We chanced upon a choir from London performing in a free concert in a cathedral that housed a rare Michelangelo statue of the Madonna and child, so we stepped in and had a listen. Oh, would that Arizona had those kinds of churches (I know, I know, it’s impossible and would look completely out of the ordinary amongst humble Arizonan stucco huts- I mean, homes)! The acoustics were absolutely incomparable! The way that the stone arches resonate with sound is breathtaking. And the organ was giant, of course. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, all the candle-lighting across European churches had left me bereft of spare change for buying candles, so I left the church without having lit one.
We stopped by a chocolatier (one of many) to purchase a box of Belgian chocolates. There are three Belgian things that every tourist should sample in their time in Belgium, and I can say that I have sampled all three. The chocolates were absolutely stunning, but my brother ate the marzipan, so I didn’t get an opportunity to try it! I still haven’t tasted marzipan yet…
We walked around more until night fell, watching people, shopping, and watching the (rather attractive) carriage drivers who ferried tourists through the city in genuine horse-drawn carriages. We didn’t take a carriage, unfortunately, but they looked very comfortable and fun. We stopped to rest for an hour or two in the main plaza of Brugge, which is similar to the main plaza of Delft, in Holland, but on a gigantic scale. In the shadow of a statue of two former insurrectionists (research the history of Brugge), we rested and I did a quick sketch of the city’s famous belfry. After resting we wandered over to a pizza place, where I sampled the last of the three Belgian foodstuffs that one must taste with my meal (well, I’m close enough to the drinking age here, and besides, it was a taste- a sample, if you will).
After dinner we walked around until night fell, and then we drove back home to Eindhoven, arriving at roughtly 2400. So, essentially, we were out of the house from about 0730 until 2400. A big day-trip, eh?
Sunday, July 13- The day was fairly uneventful, for we stayed in Eindhoven. After sleeping in for a bit, the family awoke and trudged out to the Living Museum here in Eindhoven. Essentially it’s like a village that lives in the middle ages.
It’s a rural, permanent Renaissance Festival (for you Arizonans), supporting about 30 to 40 permanent villagers and maybe 15-20 non-villager actors. Of course they aren’t a sort of cult or anything, they just prefer to live that way. In any case, it was quaint and enjoyable, what we understood. It was entirely in Dutch as well, so there was a bit of a downside to that… Anyhow, it was nice, and the weapons displays were interesting and amusing (and again, in Dutch, so there wasn’t much I could understand). 
After that, we left for the apartment and had an altogether restful weekend. I think that we’ve only been in town for… lessee, maybe half of our weekends? I know that we did most of our outings on the weekends, since my dad has work on weekdays… Anyhow, to tie up a few loose ends, I shall include this previously written but not included blog entry:Eindhoven:
Eindhoven is a business city. Not famous on the world map for anything in particular, it still has its own charm and pleasant sights. It, like all of the other cities in Holland, is laced with red bicycle lanes, bus lanes, and car lanes, all passing dangerously close to and across one another. I can’t say I’ve lived the life of a native, nor have I completely lived the life of a tourist- my experiences here have been something in the nebulous in-between. I never really wore anything that was fashionably “in” here, but I could pass as a generally eccentrically-clad person: I’ve been addressed in Dutch on many occasions by passersby, solicitors, and sales clerks. So I didn’t do too bad, I think.
Eindhoven is something like, well, the closest I could come to describing it would be as a less touristy San Francisco. It has its clubs, its shopping, and even its rural areas, and some history on the edges, too. Literally on the edges- manor houses that have been here for generations lace the town’s outskirts on sprawling, overgrown estates. Eindhoven, of course, has the almost-requisite number of old churches, but not many people attend them any more. There are plenty of bars and clubs for a fairly interesting night life, and the shopping isn’t too bad. The streets are clean, the people are civil, and only now and again you get missed by the occasional speeding scooter in the bike lane.
There are three lanes here in high use- bicycle lanes, bus lanes, and general traffic (car) lanes. Bicycle lanes are wide (I know I’ve described them before) and wide enough to even be mistaken for car lanes some times. Fortunately, they are identified by their red-clay colored asphalt. Bike lanes are traversed by scooters, bicycles, and other variations of motorized cycle. They generally run in the same directions car lanes do, but they have their own street lights and stops. Bus lanes are the real wild-cards. Half the time you don’t know which direction they’re going in, and more often then not they seem to go the opposite way that the car lanes go. The buses here are just as big as busses in the states (as opposed to US car vs. European car size ratios), so you have to be very careful to watch both sides of the road before crossing the road.
Speaking of crossing the road, jaywalking is generally ignored. When the cars are paused or not in sight, feel free to cross at the nearest crosswalk or dip in the pavement. The price is on your own head if you need major amputation or kill yourself. In Europe people take the pedestrian crossing lights as more of a suggestion and less of a requirement. Of course there are people who actually will wait for the light to change, even if it takes ten minutes (I’m exaggerating a bit) of standing in front of a completely empty street. I don’t think anything could quite compare to jaywalking Parisian streets, though. Now that’s exhilarating! They ought to make souvenir t-shirts that say “I jaywalked in Paris and survived!”
Anyhow, yes. That’s the general bustle of the city. There’s a park if you want to walk down there, there’s stuff to shop around and in if you’re bored, and there are plenty of benches for intrepid bicyclists or pedestrians who need to catch their breaths. Eindhoven’s great. ^^
That’s the general summation of my most interesting parts of my trip. Most of our bags are packed and almost ready to go, and I’m feeling fairly homesick for Eindhoven without even leaving! Today (I went to sleep in the middle of writing this blog entry and its now woensdag 16 juli) is a typical drizzly and gray Dutch day, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. The red cobbles are slick with rain, puddles of water lurking where you’d least expect them. The sky is solid, matte gray, devoid of depth or distinguishable cloud texture (though one knows that it’s all gray clouds), and there’s a slight breeze outside. It is absolutely wonderful. If it weren’t for… well, a couple things, I’d love to live here. I know, I know, I’m crazy for saying that, but still.
For all that I’ve given Holland a bad rap, its still a great country. The people are fairly nice (what I’ve seen of them- my father tells me that prejudice can get pretty bad in some areas), the weather is wet and rainy (you know you’re an Arizonan when: you enjoy wet and rainy!), the city houses are crammed all together and everybody uses bicycles, and… I just love this place! Europe is absolutely fantastic. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come back, but returning is going to be one of my dreams and goals. Nothing can really compare, in the States, not really, with regards to sheer amounts of history and literary value. Just thinking about all the people, all the great thinkers, philosophers, and writers that walked where I had gone makes me absolutely dizzy! There are so many things I haven’t been able to talk about that I haven’t had the opportunity to, so maybe one day I’ll be able to resurrect this blog and put it all down. But I think this is going to be my last in-Europe entry, so I’m going to get as much down as possible because for some reason, in Arizona it isn’t just the same. I’ll put up a returning to AZ entry later on. My thanks go out to all of you who stuck with me, prayed for me, and read all of these crazy entries. I don’t think this experience would have been quite the same if I hadn’t had all you wonderful people to talk to, think about, and write to. I hope all of you had an amazing, wonderful summer, and,
Farewells upon thine heads,
Gabby
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Rothenburg ob der Tauber and other things...
Okay, time for a bit of rambly-ness. As I learned from a friend of mine, structuring a letter and or blog post would probably assist flow of ramblyness. So:
Food:
Food in three countries (
Anyhow, on to Dutch food. Dutch food, to put it simply, is overpriced and isn’t much to talk about. For all the weeks I’ve been here, there hasn’t been a single memorable dish to speak of. And they’re all expensive- not really worth your time or money. Dutch food also tends to have curry somewhere in the menu, and more often then not you’ll find curry in your food, even though it didn’t say so on the menu. I mean, come on. Once you find curry in Chinese noodles one day and then Italian pasta the next, you know something’s up. Truth is, curry’s one of the “traditional” seasonings, if you will, of Dutch food. Because the
German food- I’ve been to
That’s my quick summary of German, Dutch, and French food! Next weekend we intend to go to
Countryside:
I mentioned in my last blog entry that the French countryside is rolling and beautiful. It is. It is beautiful in the way that an illuminated manuscript is, beautiful in the way that a woman is when she’s found the perfect mix of makeup and herself, beautiful in the way a medieval princess is. Its beauty lies in its neatness, in its organization- organization to perfection. French countryside is low rolling hills and well-maintained forest paths, paved roads, and views you can see kilometers of. It seems to be saturated with history- monuments to the World Wars dot the landscape. You can see, as you look out and drive, schoolgirls walking- schoolgirls wearing uniforms of the 40’s, threading carefully past the German soldiers streaming in. You can see a young soldier jumping into his Jeep with his squad, off for adventure and ultimately the War.
The German countryside is wild beauty. It is unexpected and dangerous and mysterious-
The Dutch countryside is… wet.
Yeah, Dutch countryside=not really my thing.
Languages:
French: French is, surprisingly, not as musical or unique as I thought it would be. Hm, wait, I retract that statement. In
German: Wonderful, beautiful German! Not half as hack-y or cough-y as thought, natively spoken German is a blessing and wonder to behold. It makes me majorly happy just to listen to it. There’s the added bonus of understanding bits and pieces, and eavesdropping!
Dutch: Gargly and slurred if you go too fast. There’s a certain charm, but not quite my thing.
You can kind of see where I’m going with this…
Anywhoo, that’s the end of my rambly bit. Today we went to Rothenburg, which is
Anywhoo, in Rothenburg we had REAL GERMAN BRATWURSTS!!! OHEMGEEZ! Okay, they were excellent. ^___^ And afterwards we had these little things called “Schneeballen/s”, which were little balls of egg pastry coated in either chocolate, sugar, or other sweet things. They were yummeh. I bought a Rothenburg patch for my bag, and my bag is going to look pretty sweet when I’m done with it! I can’t wait! Anyhow, that was the day- perhaps I’ll go into Rothenburg a bit later, but my da’s calling me off the comp for now.
Love you all!
Gabbages-Lea
Friday, 27 June 2008
the French countryside and then some!
^ The statue at the memorial, The Spirit of America's Youth Rising from the Waves or somesuch.
^Me being thoughtful on Omaha Beach
^Beautiful Omaha Beach
Wow, I’m actually driving through the French countryside… who’d have imagined? It’s amazingly beautiful, in the way that a lot of European countrysides are. Everything is, of course, green, and I can’t help but think of the history. I’m listening to Regina Spektor’s “The Call” from the Prince Caspian soundtrack, and if anyone’s seen the movie, it’s played near the end, in a point of reminiscing, and sort of lightly revolves around soldiers and war and such. It’s really a sort of sad song, and I can’t help but think of all the soldiers who have walked this countryside. From the knights and peasants of the middle ages to World War I and II, it’s sort of a sobering thought- so many young men and some women, marching off to an uncertain fate in the trenches. I can’t help but imagine so many war stories of that sort…
--reminiscing point, where generally I’d insert a well-thought-out short story, but where I haven’t put it together quite yet--
… Anyhow, the French countryside is amazingly beautiful, and I wish I could come back to see it again. As for right now, I’m glad to be able to go through here. Little towns dot the landscape, while fields are separated by tufts of green hedge. Trees spread their leafy branches over the occasional herd of cows. There are plenty of trees here, all of them a green that’s almost unbelievable. For too long have I lived in a desert city- trees like this seem almost unnatural to me. The entire land beneath me is a tapestry of greens and red- and gray-tiled roofs. Sometimes some of the trees have been planted in rows to line a path, and sometimes there are full orchards planted. It’s orderly, in general- even splotches of trees seem to fit a natural pattern. Car ride’s getting bumpy, so I’m off for now.
… Aaaaand, I’m off ‘til the next weekend. Yes, it is Friday the 27th of June. I am in…
There were plenty of fish stands, where you can buy fried fish and sauce to eat while you walk around, or French fries. Have I mentioned how the Dutch love their French fries? Anyway, at the fish stands you can buy little pre-un-boned herring, which you down in one chomp. You hold it above your mouth, tilt your head back, slide it into your mouth as far as it can go, bite, and swallow. Think… baby eagle. Yeah, you eat it like a baby eagle would eat, well, a fish. So there are no bones to worry about, and they give you a napkin to clean your fingers off. It’s apparently tasty, but I couldn’t try it myself. Just… couldn’t. Maybe some other time, when I’m not with my brother who intentionally loves trying to creep me out.
So, yes, lots of people are out and about on market days. Fabric stalls, clothes stalls, antiques stalls, bread stalls, fruit stands, everything was there. Oh, and don’t forget the infamous cheese stalls!! Wheels of cheese and wedges of cheese for sale and on display! Mmm, cheese. I myself like Old Amsterdam, but that’s pretty expensive (up to 9 euros/kilo, and one wedge is about a kilo), but the younger cheese I like
So, I’ll prolly get more into marketplace info later on. But after the Saturday market we headed to
The week itself was fairly uneventful, and on Wednesday I met my dad’s co-worker’s daughters, who are living here for two years. Unfortunately, one is going into fifth grade and one is going into eighth, which doesn’t make for incredibly… stimulating heart-to-hearts or anything. They’re nice girls, just young. So yeah, I’ll live without speaking in English to non-family members for the next few weeks… I hope.
So, that’s it! I’m here in
I’ll add some belated
^Notre Dame Cathedral!
^ Me reading on the Champ de/du/d' (?) Mars, in front of the Eiffel Tower. Feel free to ignore the very unflattering view of my chin(s).
^Final view of the Tower!
Monday, 16 June 2008
An American In Paris
Wow.
So, I haven't any pictures yet, but a quick rundown of my day (Sunday):
In the morning, we figured out the Metro(politain) System and managed to get to the Cathedral of (At? in? of?) Notre Dame. Yes, that one. It was rather cool. Okay, this is not my country loyalties flaring up, but I was more impressed with the cathedral at
After the Mass, we explored some of the interior of the cathedral, but because there were so many other tourists it was hard to look at anything for too long before you nearly got swept off your feet and down the stream of people. So I lit a few candles and prayed (generally in front of the famous statue of St. Jeanne d'Arc, asking for some benevolence, guidance, and a divine hand in some matters for myself and a couple others), then we headed out to the Louvre.
The Louvre, the Louvre... Wow, that was an experience not to be forgotten. Hopefully we can go back tomorrow, but we covered a few of the major sights. The Venus de Milo, the winged Victory of Samothrace, Botticelli's frescoes, Borghese Hermaphroditus, the Mona Lisa (of COURSE!), the Crowning of Napoleon, and a bunch of photos we saw in our old Latin textbooks. Like the Rape of the Sabine Women, the Horatii, and the one where a dead guy is being brought past a room with a woman and two younger women, all of them half-fainting, by a group of muscley looking guys. By the way, billyboyd07, the angry baby is still there, and is still very angry. xD There were a few halls that are nearly completely gilded in gold paint- that’s what you get for using a palace as a museum. Unfortunately, the French Crown Jewels were out for restoration. It was saddening, but there were so many other things to see! Michelangelo’s sculptures were amazing, and I saw so many things I’d only ever seen before in books. It was amazing. Seeing them, up close- the cracks in the paint, the veins in the rock, so close you could touch it! Well, no, that would be wrong and probably get you in a lot of trouble, but still! So close!!
After the Louvre we got temporarily lost with respect to the Metro, because there was a bomb threat on one of the tracks we were planning, and my da had to plan an alternate route. With regards to the bomb threat, nothing happened, thank all the gods. So we got home, had dinner, and went to sleep.
Next Day (Monday):
So, the Museum Orsay is closed today, so we went to… The
You could see so much from the second floor, it was amazing.
After the
After the Arc de Triomphe, we looped back to the Notre Dame for a look at the
After the deportation memorial, we went to Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore founded by a woman named Sylvia Beach. There, writers like James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Andre Gide, Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, Alice B. Toklas, and Sherwood Anderson took time to read, find their books, find their bearings, and get aquainted with Ms. Beach. Some even stayed there for a while, living there and writing their pieces on the bank of the Seine, in
After my rejuvenating experience in Shakespeare & Company, we took dinner at a Parisian restaurant on the
At the
“I think I fell in love with
We left, seeing the lights of the
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Cologne and Burg Rheinfels
So, I guess I’m writing this entry several days late but two days in advance. As way of explanation, it’s Tuesday. I’m going to get to internet on Thursday. But the things I shall be recording will involve the doings of the past weekend. So let me get to describing my surroundings. I’m in my backyard, sitting comfortably in the shade of our bamboo plants (yes, bamboo plants in the Netherlands) and watching the birds, as my headphones play "Leaving on a Jet Plane" into my ears (it’s set to play my "Summer ’08" playlist). For some reason every time I come outside it starts to get breezy and overcast. So I may be going back in a bit. Surprisingly enough, it hasn’t rained too much or drizzled at all in the past few days. Speaking of the past few days, let me start on Saturday.
Saturday: First pic is the one I took the day I went, the second of the cathedral is one my da took when he went a few weeks ago.
The family and I drove up to Cologne, Germany. The drive took about an hour or two, and once there, we took to a parking garage, unloaded our backpacks, and prepared to walk to the cathedral. What greeted me there was something on such a scale as to leave me awestruck. The twin spires of the Cologne Cathedral stretched to the sky, ascending into the heavens on the backs of ancient, long-dead saints whose benevolent gestures were occasionally made unclear by the fluffs of distant, roosting pigeons. The gray sky only made the age-old building more imposing, the spiked towers proclaiming the aloofness of a God far beyond the ken of man. Bah, forget "beyond the ken of Man," no, these towers proclaimed haughty superiority, rather like a creaky, powerful seneschal to an aloof and mysterious king. God was up, God was far, God loomed above, meting out divine punishment on ignorant, unknowing mortals.
Speaking of mortals, the plaza that stood at the base of the cathedral was teeming with life. Tourists of all sorts congregated there, oohing and ahhing over the architecture, or watching the mimes that stood stock-still in various costumes and face paints. A man in silver-gray paint and robes stood like a statue of a king of old. He stood stock still, a small brass jug at the base of his portable platform clinking with the occasional coin as someone paused to take a photo. A man in a British Navy costume out of Pirates of the Carribean stood there as well, while a woman dressed as an angel faced the opposite direction. All of the mimes attracted attention, but the other distinguishing patrons of the square were several artists who knelt on the stone ground and sketched out reproductions of famous artwork. However, the cathedral loomed over it all, still the never-moving centerpiece of generations. However many different food stalls sailed in and out, however many different mime-characters took to their platforms in the square, however many pigeons came and sat on the ancient Roman fountain in the square, the square, the cathedral, and the fountain would remain the same. The darkness of the stones ensured that.
But back to the cathedral. Both saints and gargoyles were nestled in every available crevice and niche. There were more saints than gargoyles, though. Inside the cathedral’s surprisingly small doors, the ceilings arched up dozens of feet to various points. Of course, the cathedral was in the typical cross-shaped layout with the Shrine of the Magi at the very back of the nave. But we’ll get to that in a bit. Rows and rows of lit candles flickered around a shrine where wooden statues of Mary, Jesus, and several bystanders showed the scene of Mary holding Jesus’s crucified body after the body was taken from the cross. So, the emaciated form of the painted-wood Jesus lay in the shrine above the rows of candles, lit in prayer for people around the world.
Beyond and to the right of the kneelers and candles was the main length of church and pews. The pews were old, not as old as the cathedral itself, obviously, but old-looking indeed. Hell, anything looks old to me, I’m 15! In any case, the pews and their kneelers led to the crossing point of the cross-shaped building, where the priest stood. Forgive my ignorance of Catholic terminology. Beyond the crossing point stood the gold-covered Shrine of the Three Kings, where the bodies (or at least several key parts of the legendary three kings of the New Testament- you know, Kings with Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense) were interred. Those of you who have read "Lamb" will remember the names Balthazar, Melchior, and… erm, I forgot the last one.
In any case, the shrine is truly a thing of shining gold and jewels. In fact, the only thing that it falls behind in the shinyness category is the shrine that I saw in Hong Kong where a shred of the Buddha was supposedly kept. Funny how the worshipping/glorification styles of religions can overlap. I mean, okay, Christians aren’t worshipping the Magi, but still. Anyhow, the coffins were gilded with gold, if they weren’t solid gold themselves. Before priests began the Mass, they would make a little bow towards the three coffins in the shrine.
You know, it’s kind of funny. These coffins are being paid extreme respect, but these kings didn’t really do much. I mean, sure, they probably financed young Jesus’s lifestyle, and they were, I guess, some of the first Christians, but what were they really? Not many people know. Astrologers, some speculate, right? Well, if they were astrologers, doesn’t that go against the whole concept of… well, a lot of Christianity? You don’t see my pastor going around reading the stars. And all they did was follow the stars. I guess they were "told by God" that the baby Jesus was born to be a King over all, but still. What about the shepherds that came to worship the God-made-child? I don’t see a shrine to them anywhere. Just because they didn’t give major material gifts doesn’t mean they weren’t worthy of recognition for being believers in Christ, or God, or at least following Angel orders. It doesn’t make much sense! Sometimes those little bits of Christian history amuse/confuse me. Please don’t hit me, those of you with determined religious beliefs… *winces*
Anyhow, that’s the main body of the cathedral. To the right of the crossing-point stood a large statue of St. Christopher with Jesus on his shoulder. The poor saint looks absolutely agonized, carrying the cherub-faced 100 ton (well, I’m elaborating on the original story, of course) Jesus on his back. The guy looks absolutely pitiful. And the Jesus statue looks almost fiendish, smiling there while His weight is causing this guy agonizing pain. Again, another wonder of the Church. Because of the Three Kings Shrine, this cathedral has kind of become a place for travelers, hence the addition of the St. Christopher statue.
Beside the statue is the entrance to the crypts, where rich people and priests were buried through the ages. It’s distinctly chillier down there, and I was glad to get out of there quickly. I mean, it was well-lit, but it was still… weird. You couldn’t see anything- it was just one small room with fairly blank walls (blank but for the names engraved on them), but the idea was still creepy. Out of the crypts, we crossed the edge of the crossing-point to walk down the left arm of the cross. That is, if we’re talking about left being left when you walk from the bottom to the top of the cross. So, if the cross was standing upright, the left arm if you were looking at it. Down there was a small chapel that housed the oldest crucifix in Europe. As is the typical design of cathedrals, the pews, the priest-speaking area, and the nave aren’t the only part. Around the main body is a surrounding area where there are biers of dead Archbishops and other figures as well as various small shrines to several saints. Portions of tall stone walls and even parts of the arching ceiling had Latin and German all over them.
Î haven't the foggiest of what it means, but that's up for translation! Have fun! I just took a picture of the shiny latin. XD
Large biers with the typical stone effigy lying on their tops were the resting places of at least one knight of ages ago and several archbishops, whose names were recorded on the effigies, biers, or the wall. After going around and looking at the beautiful heraldic mosaics (mosaics of various family crests on the floor) on the floor as well as the dead archbishops and others, we escaped outside once again, to the main plaza and the surrounding area.
In the square we rested a while, then headed off to the Roman-German Museum, where, for the most part, the good parts of the informational placards were in German. They translated the basics for those English speakers, but I was glad to have been able to read the German. There are so many Roman relics from the area in and around Cologne- Jupiter columns, tombstones, carriage fittings (enough of the carriage fittings remained to actually reconstruct one), earthenware, glass, burial urns (there were a couple with the ashes still sealed inside), sign-stones(instead of posts), bits of statues, etcetera. It was so great! From our two years of Latin I could remember the layout of some of the gravestones (remember, on those random non-reader inserts in the Ecce Romani books?), and besides, they kindly put the full Latin scribing on the placards, translated them to German, then gave an explanation in both German and English (the English being more concise and not half as interesting). I was so glad I could mainly get the idea from the German! I couldn’t fully translate each entry, but I could figure out what they meant in a general way. It was great.
After the museum, we went souvenir shopping, and suffice it to say I bought several German things to deck out my room and backpack. Ja, Deutschland! Oh, speaking of Deutschland, the fight for the 2008 Euro Cup is on! I watched the most recent Deutschland-Poland and Netherlands-Italy games, where Deutschland pwned 2-0 and the Netherlands totally geown3d Italy 3-0. It was so great!! I think I’ve gained a new appreciation and slight obsession with soccer. Why do people even like American football in comparison?!? Soccer is so much more eventful and pumped (as opposed to waiting for American football to go somewhere and actually do something…)! I mean, sure, US football takes considerable skill and bulk, but football seems to take a different kind of skill. You’ve got to be fast and flexible and strong, as well as have a good head for bashing into people and flying all over the place without considerable padding. Football’s such an… American sport. Big and obnoxious. Not that I have anything particular against big and obnoxious, but I just wish that soccer was more popular in the states. (Hell, I like big and obnoxious! Cue the butch bikers!)
Speaking of big and obnoxious, there are virtually no SUVs here. I mean, it’s to be expected- everything about Europe is skinnier than the United States: the people, the streets, the cars… It’s so nice! I love it here, even though I feel rather chubby most of the time.
So, that was my rambly bit on Saturday. Now for Sunday.
Sunday:
We went back to Eindhoven Saturday night, and then left for St. Goar, Germany, in the morning (the ‘rents figured that even a full tank of gas was cheaper than rooms for the lot of us). The drive was considerably longer than the one to Cologne, but was well worth it. After about three hours of driving in our little Fiat, we got to St. Goar on the Rhine. My god, it was amazing. Sprawled above the city were the ruins of a giant castle that was centuries old. And the city itself was sprawled along the banks of the Rhine, the river flowing mid-size and fast, carrying barges of materials downstream. The sky was bright and the breeze was blowing, as it always is here. Several fluffy white clouds meandered across the sky in small herds, and the leaves of the trees rustled in quiet murmurs to one another.
The castle was called Burg Rheinfels, and it sat above the Rhine like a great big fish (sorry, it’s a Pratchett joke…). Its sprawling expanse originally took up the entire hillside (Arizonans, think a little bigger than A Mountain when I say "hill") as well as quite a bit of where the city of St. Goar sits today. Its tall, faded red walls (the local stone, I don’t know what it was) were half-ruined after the French who took it temporarily bombed it. But now a lot of the red of the tops of the walls were obscured by various plants and grasses growing on the crumbled ruined bits or on parts of the walls themselves.
The family and I ascended into the castle main, where you could get in for a small fee. The inside was definitely something out of a storybook- no, not those princess castles, but more of a… medieval castle with typical fortifications and everything you could ever need inside the walls. There was an apotheke (roughly translated to drugstore or medicinal storage place, esp. coldrooms where medicines were mixed), a slaughterhouse, places for cattle, dungeons (of course), cellars, large halls, various arrow-slits in the walls as well as places to pour burning pitch and oil in the case of a siege (which happened fairly often between the rivals families in the area), and plenty of wells and food storage areas. Burg Rhinefels was originally the place where people could not break in- partly from fortifications and partly because of the fact there was so much storage for foodstuffs as well as places to raise livestock within the walls.
I can’t recall the entire history, but after the original family dwindled out, the castle slowly fell into disrepair and then into the hands of the French. The French put troops there, and after they were done there (I can’t recall exactly what they were doing in the castle), they bombed the place so that nobody could use it as proper fortification again. After the French left, it was handed over to some wealthy fellow, and after a while the castle became property of St. Goar, the city.
The castle is still rather impressive, due to its size and sheer strategic area. It was placed on the Rhine, of course, because the landowners could tax the trade going in and out, as well as control the trading port there. On occasion you’ll stumble on the random trebuchet ammunition (a pile of age-old round balls covered in grass and dirt), and you can peer over parts of the broken walls and through arrow-slits to get a good view of the landscape. The arrow and burning oil slits are on the inner as well as outer walls, to provide maximum security, should one of the walls be breached.
Outside the castle, the hills leading to the Rhine are green, and in some cases, the location of wineries and vineyards. The grape plants cling tenaciously to the almost 45° slope, their eerily straight rows giving the hill the appearance of having a cornrow-like hairstyle. I wondered how on earth you would harvest those grapes without falling to your doom.
The houses that are spilled in rough lines at the bases of the hills are old, built on houses that were there before, which were, in turn, built on the houses that were there centuries ago. A rock stands in the river, the famed ex-location of the Loreley, a siren whose beautiful songs apparently lured a lustful prince to his death. To exact vengeance, the king ordered the woman hunted down, and when she was cornered by his troops she called to her father the Rhine, and was swept away and never seen from again. A statue stands in her stead.
The river, the houses, and the castle all have a timeless quality about them, and after we ate lunch I wandered down to an old set of stairs that led down to where a beach used to be. However, the course of the river had changed ever so slightly and now wavelets were pressing against the bottom step, where you could see rocks fading under the water’s surface to the deeper parts of the river. I sat and wrote for a bit, ruminating on the history of the place. The very stillness of the entire situation was very… peaceful, and I’d do anything to go back there again. The sky was slightly overcast, and the wind was crisp but not cold. The river before me churned its way along its course as it had done for generations of writers, workers, and great minds. Just thinking that I was yet another young, idealistic writer on the banks of the river Rhine was a wonder to itself- how many people looked out here and thought along the same lines I did, thinking about others, about the world, about themselves. I remember seeing in the castle museum that several prominent writers stayed at Burg Rheinfels when they were writing. It’s pretty intense. So, I enjoyed my 15 minutes of non-angsty thought process before I was pulled away by the parents, because it had begun to drizzle. After driving around for a while afterwards, we headed home, for Eindhoven.
And that, folks, is the concise story of my weekend (yes, concise. What? I had the urge to describe stuff!). I’ll probably add more on Eindhoven life later, but I think my hands are cramping. So I leave off for now, hopefully I’ll be able to get online soon.
Thursday morning:
I just woke up (yes, just, as in, about three minutes ago). Looking outside, I didn’t feel too bad about things. After all, it was bright, that’s good, right? Wow, comma overload… Anywhoo, I then looked outside with glasses on and saw the drizzle-drops on my window. Wonderful. At least the shopping area/internet caf is about a ten minute walk at most! Nothing much has happened my week, other than the weekend, so the previous five pages or so of text should suffice. My apologies for the length, but the ramblyness seems to sort of be my style… In any case, I am safe and fine, and hope to have fun on my limited internet café time! :D
Thursday Afternoon: Okay, I'm at the internet cafe, at the outrageous price of 3 euros per hour. So I'll try and get to everything quickly, 'cuz I've only got an hour and this keyboard's pretty cruddy. Okay, that was hastily put up, hope it works! *crosses fingers*
Oh, I'll be even farther from contact for the following week, since I'll be in France for the major part of next week. Hopefully I can find a cheaper internet cafe there!
Love you all!
Saturday: First pic is the one I took the day I went, the second of the cathedral is one my da took when he went a few weeks ago.
The family and I drove up to Cologne, Germany. The drive took about an hour or two, and once there, we took to a parking garage, unloaded our backpacks, and prepared to walk to the cathedral. What greeted me there was something on such a scale as to leave me awestruck. The twin spires of the Cologne Cathedral stretched to the sky, ascending into the heavens on the backs of ancient, long-dead saints whose benevolent gestures were occasionally made unclear by the fluffs of distant, roosting pigeons. The gray sky only made the age-old building more imposing, the spiked towers proclaiming the aloofness of a God far beyond the ken of man. Bah, forget "beyond the ken of Man," no, these towers proclaimed haughty superiority, rather like a creaky, powerful seneschal to an aloof and mysterious king. God was up, God was far, God loomed above, meting out divine punishment on ignorant, unknowing mortals.
Speaking of mortals, the plaza that stood at the base of the cathedral was teeming with life. Tourists of all sorts congregated there, oohing and ahhing over the architecture, or watching the mimes that stood stock-still in various costumes and face paints. A man in silver-gray paint and robes stood like a statue of a king of old. He stood stock still, a small brass jug at the base of his portable platform clinking with the occasional coin as someone paused to take a photo. A man in a British Navy costume out of Pirates of the Carribean stood there as well, while a woman dressed as an angel faced the opposite direction. All of the mimes attracted attention, but the other distinguishing patrons of the square were several artists who knelt on the stone ground and sketched out reproductions of famous artwork. However, the cathedral loomed over it all, still the never-moving centerpiece of generations. However many different food stalls sailed in and out, however many different mime-characters took to their platforms in the square, however many pigeons came and sat on the ancient Roman fountain in the square, the square, the cathedral, and the fountain would remain the same. The darkness of the stones ensured that.
But back to the cathedral. Both saints and gargoyles were nestled in every available crevice and niche. There were more saints than gargoyles, though. Inside the cathedral’s surprisingly small doors, the ceilings arched up dozens of feet to various points. Of course, the cathedral was in the typical cross-shaped layout with the Shrine of the Magi at the very back of the nave. But we’ll get to that in a bit. Rows and rows of lit candles flickered around a shrine where wooden statues of Mary, Jesus, and several bystanders showed the scene of Mary holding Jesus’s crucified body after the body was taken from the cross. So, the emaciated form of the painted-wood Jesus lay in the shrine above the rows of candles, lit in prayer for people around the world.
Beyond and to the right of the kneelers and candles was the main length of church and pews. The pews were old, not as old as the cathedral itself, obviously, but old-looking indeed. Hell, anything looks old to me, I’m 15! In any case, the pews and their kneelers led to the crossing point of the cross-shaped building, where the priest stood. Forgive my ignorance of Catholic terminology. Beyond the crossing point stood the gold-covered Shrine of the Three Kings, where the bodies (or at least several key parts of the legendary three kings of the New Testament- you know, Kings with Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense) were interred. Those of you who have read "Lamb" will remember the names Balthazar, Melchior, and… erm, I forgot the last one.
In any case, the shrine is truly a thing of shining gold and jewels. In fact, the only thing that it falls behind in the shinyness category is the shrine that I saw in Hong Kong where a shred of the Buddha was supposedly kept. Funny how the worshipping/glorification styles of religions can overlap. I mean, okay, Christians aren’t worshipping the Magi, but still. Anyhow, the coffins were gilded with gold, if they weren’t solid gold themselves. Before priests began the Mass, they would make a little bow towards the three coffins in the shrine.
You know, it’s kind of funny. These coffins are being paid extreme respect, but these kings didn’t really do much. I mean, sure, they probably financed young Jesus’s lifestyle, and they were, I guess, some of the first Christians, but what were they really? Not many people know. Astrologers, some speculate, right? Well, if they were astrologers, doesn’t that go against the whole concept of… well, a lot of Christianity? You don’t see my pastor going around reading the stars. And all they did was follow the stars. I guess they were "told by God" that the baby Jesus was born to be a King over all, but still. What about the shepherds that came to worship the God-made-child? I don’t see a shrine to them anywhere. Just because they didn’t give major material gifts doesn’t mean they weren’t worthy of recognition for being believers in Christ, or God, or at least following Angel orders. It doesn’t make much sense! Sometimes those little bits of Christian history amuse/confuse me. Please don’t hit me, those of you with determined religious beliefs… *winces*
Anyhow, that’s the main body of the cathedral. To the right of the crossing-point stood a large statue of St. Christopher with Jesus on his shoulder. The poor saint looks absolutely agonized, carrying the cherub-faced 100 ton (well, I’m elaborating on the original story, of course) Jesus on his back. The guy looks absolutely pitiful. And the Jesus statue looks almost fiendish, smiling there while His weight is causing this guy agonizing pain. Again, another wonder of the Church. Because of the Three Kings Shrine, this cathedral has kind of become a place for travelers, hence the addition of the St. Christopher statue.
Beside the statue is the entrance to the crypts, where rich people and priests were buried through the ages. It’s distinctly chillier down there, and I was glad to get out of there quickly. I mean, it was well-lit, but it was still… weird. You couldn’t see anything- it was just one small room with fairly blank walls (blank but for the names engraved on them), but the idea was still creepy. Out of the crypts, we crossed the edge of the crossing-point to walk down the left arm of the cross. That is, if we’re talking about left being left when you walk from the bottom to the top of the cross. So, if the cross was standing upright, the left arm if you were looking at it. Down there was a small chapel that housed the oldest crucifix in Europe. As is the typical design of cathedrals, the pews, the priest-speaking area, and the nave aren’t the only part. Around the main body is a surrounding area where there are biers of dead Archbishops and other figures as well as various small shrines to several saints. Portions of tall stone walls and even parts of the arching ceiling had Latin and German all over them.
Î haven't the foggiest of what it means, but that's up for translation! Have fun! I just took a picture of the shiny latin. XD
Large biers with the typical stone effigy lying on their tops were the resting places of at least one knight of ages ago and several archbishops, whose names were recorded on the effigies, biers, or the wall. After going around and looking at the beautiful heraldic mosaics (mosaics of various family crests on the floor) on the floor as well as the dead archbishops and others, we escaped outside once again, to the main plaza and the surrounding area.
In the square we rested a while, then headed off to the Roman-German Museum, where, for the most part, the good parts of the informational placards were in German. They translated the basics for those English speakers, but I was glad to have been able to read the German. There are so many Roman relics from the area in and around Cologne- Jupiter columns, tombstones, carriage fittings (enough of the carriage fittings remained to actually reconstruct one), earthenware, glass, burial urns (there were a couple with the ashes still sealed inside), sign-stones(instead of posts), bits of statues, etcetera. It was so great! From our two years of Latin I could remember the layout of some of the gravestones (remember, on those random non-reader inserts in the Ecce Romani books?), and besides, they kindly put the full Latin scribing on the placards, translated them to German, then gave an explanation in both German and English (the English being more concise and not half as interesting). I was so glad I could mainly get the idea from the German! I couldn’t fully translate each entry, but I could figure out what they meant in a general way. It was great.
After the museum, we went souvenir shopping, and suffice it to say I bought several German things to deck out my room and backpack. Ja, Deutschland! Oh, speaking of Deutschland, the fight for the 2008 Euro Cup is on! I watched the most recent Deutschland-Poland and Netherlands-Italy games, where Deutschland pwned 2-0 and the Netherlands totally geown3d Italy 3-0. It was so great!! I think I’ve gained a new appreciation and slight obsession with soccer. Why do people even like American football in comparison?!? Soccer is so much more eventful and pumped (as opposed to waiting for American football to go somewhere and actually do something…)! I mean, sure, US football takes considerable skill and bulk, but football seems to take a different kind of skill. You’ve got to be fast and flexible and strong, as well as have a good head for bashing into people and flying all over the place without considerable padding. Football’s such an… American sport. Big and obnoxious. Not that I have anything particular against big and obnoxious, but I just wish that soccer was more popular in the states. (Hell, I like big and obnoxious! Cue the butch bikers!)
Speaking of big and obnoxious, there are virtually no SUVs here. I mean, it’s to be expected- everything about Europe is skinnier than the United States: the people, the streets, the cars… It’s so nice! I love it here, even though I feel rather chubby most of the time.
So, that was my rambly bit on Saturday. Now for Sunday.
Sunday:
We went back to Eindhoven Saturday night, and then left for St. Goar, Germany, in the morning (the ‘rents figured that even a full tank of gas was cheaper than rooms for the lot of us). The drive was considerably longer than the one to Cologne, but was well worth it. After about three hours of driving in our little Fiat, we got to St. Goar on the Rhine. My god, it was amazing. Sprawled above the city were the ruins of a giant castle that was centuries old. And the city itself was sprawled along the banks of the Rhine, the river flowing mid-size and fast, carrying barges of materials downstream. The sky was bright and the breeze was blowing, as it always is here. Several fluffy white clouds meandered across the sky in small herds, and the leaves of the trees rustled in quiet murmurs to one another.
The castle was called Burg Rheinfels, and it sat above the Rhine like a great big fish (sorry, it’s a Pratchett joke…). Its sprawling expanse originally took up the entire hillside (Arizonans, think a little bigger than A Mountain when I say "hill") as well as quite a bit of where the city of St. Goar sits today. Its tall, faded red walls (the local stone, I don’t know what it was) were half-ruined after the French who took it temporarily bombed it. But now a lot of the red of the tops of the walls were obscured by various plants and grasses growing on the crumbled ruined bits or on parts of the walls themselves.
The family and I ascended into the castle main, where you could get in for a small fee. The inside was definitely something out of a storybook- no, not those princess castles, but more of a… medieval castle with typical fortifications and everything you could ever need inside the walls. There was an apotheke (roughly translated to drugstore or medicinal storage place, esp. coldrooms where medicines were mixed), a slaughterhouse, places for cattle, dungeons (of course), cellars, large halls, various arrow-slits in the walls as well as places to pour burning pitch and oil in the case of a siege (which happened fairly often between the rivals families in the area), and plenty of wells and food storage areas. Burg Rhinefels was originally the place where people could not break in- partly from fortifications and partly because of the fact there was so much storage for foodstuffs as well as places to raise livestock within the walls.
I can’t recall the entire history, but after the original family dwindled out, the castle slowly fell into disrepair and then into the hands of the French. The French put troops there, and after they were done there (I can’t recall exactly what they were doing in the castle), they bombed the place so that nobody could use it as proper fortification again. After the French left, it was handed over to some wealthy fellow, and after a while the castle became property of St. Goar, the city.
The castle is still rather impressive, due to its size and sheer strategic area. It was placed on the Rhine, of course, because the landowners could tax the trade going in and out, as well as control the trading port there. On occasion you’ll stumble on the random trebuchet ammunition (a pile of age-old round balls covered in grass and dirt), and you can peer over parts of the broken walls and through arrow-slits to get a good view of the landscape. The arrow and burning oil slits are on the inner as well as outer walls, to provide maximum security, should one of the walls be breached.
Outside the castle, the hills leading to the Rhine are green, and in some cases, the location of wineries and vineyards. The grape plants cling tenaciously to the almost 45° slope, their eerily straight rows giving the hill the appearance of having a cornrow-like hairstyle. I wondered how on earth you would harvest those grapes without falling to your doom.
The houses that are spilled in rough lines at the bases of the hills are old, built on houses that were there before, which were, in turn, built on the houses that were there centuries ago. A rock stands in the river, the famed ex-location of the Loreley, a siren whose beautiful songs apparently lured a lustful prince to his death. To exact vengeance, the king ordered the woman hunted down, and when she was cornered by his troops she called to her father the Rhine, and was swept away and never seen from again. A statue stands in her stead.
The river, the houses, and the castle all have a timeless quality about them, and after we ate lunch I wandered down to an old set of stairs that led down to where a beach used to be. However, the course of the river had changed ever so slightly and now wavelets were pressing against the bottom step, where you could see rocks fading under the water’s surface to the deeper parts of the river. I sat and wrote for a bit, ruminating on the history of the place. The very stillness of the entire situation was very… peaceful, and I’d do anything to go back there again. The sky was slightly overcast, and the wind was crisp but not cold. The river before me churned its way along its course as it had done for generations of writers, workers, and great minds. Just thinking that I was yet another young, idealistic writer on the banks of the river Rhine was a wonder to itself- how many people looked out here and thought along the same lines I did, thinking about others, about the world, about themselves. I remember seeing in the castle museum that several prominent writers stayed at Burg Rheinfels when they were writing. It’s pretty intense. So, I enjoyed my 15 minutes of non-angsty thought process before I was pulled away by the parents, because it had begun to drizzle. After driving around for a while afterwards, we headed home, for Eindhoven.
And that, folks, is the concise story of my weekend (yes, concise. What? I had the urge to describe stuff!). I’ll probably add more on Eindhoven life later, but I think my hands are cramping. So I leave off for now, hopefully I’ll be able to get online soon.
Thursday morning:
I just woke up (yes, just, as in, about three minutes ago). Looking outside, I didn’t feel too bad about things. After all, it was bright, that’s good, right? Wow, comma overload… Anywhoo, I then looked outside with glasses on and saw the drizzle-drops on my window. Wonderful. At least the shopping area/internet caf is about a ten minute walk at most! Nothing much has happened my week, other than the weekend, so the previous five pages or so of text should suffice. My apologies for the length, but the ramblyness seems to sort of be my style… In any case, I am safe and fine, and hope to have fun on my limited internet café time! :D
Thursday Afternoon: Okay, I'm at the internet cafe, at the outrageous price of 3 euros per hour. So I'll try and get to everything quickly, 'cuz I've only got an hour and this keyboard's pretty cruddy. Okay, that was hastily put up, hope it works! *crosses fingers*
Oh, I'll be even farther from contact for the following week, since I'll be in France for the major part of next week. Hopefully I can find a cheaper internet cafe there!
Love you all!
Friday, 6 June 2008
Anne Frank Park
So, I visited Anne Frank Park in
So, those of you in AZ recall the wide-ish bike lanes we’ve got painted to the side of the road (unless you’re in
^Final bike picture. Actually, it's my dad's bike. I've got a mountain bike here. But I stole his cause it's cooler looking. Love the hat! Yay Chucks!
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Exploration of Eindhoven
So, I'm here! In Eindhoven! I guess I'll be here for a while, til the 20th of July, actually. The weather is typically gray, the sky a looming sheet of cloudy glass. It's a rare night I see the stars. But things are very peaceful, people are generally quiet (until, that is, the subject of soccer comes up), and there isn't much to disturb the casual Dutch atmosphere. Everyone here, it seems, rides a bike to get around- a curious city bike that isn't as wide or long as US city cruisers, and seems like a mix of beachside bike and racing bike. I guess they'd be street bikes. Definitely not the sort you'd generally see in the States.
My days are typically filled with exploring the surrounding city, searching out English books and good, quiet cafes (of which there are many, trust me). People like to peoplewatch, which is entirely enjoyable and completely normal. You just take a seat somewhere, whether it be on a bench in the plaza or at a cafe table with your drink, and stare pensively at the pairs of people walking by. Generally you glance and try and figure out what they're doing, what they're thinking, what they do for a living. It's pretty fun, and not many people are too disconcerted by it. Kids, young people, middleaged people, elders all peoplewatch.
The fashion is very different here. Rarely, if ever, will you see a boy (or even a girl) with "emo" bangs or hairstyle. Skinny jeans are in, tucked into the tops of ankle boots. Trenchcoats as well, because the weather here is drizzly at best. Messenger bags are also in use, and plenty of guys are wearing long shorts/short pants/what some girls call capris. But it all makes sense. Because it rains/drizzles quite a bit, and you don't want to get your pant legs wet. So, you wear skinny jeans so the hems don't get in the puddles (or tuck the hems into your vairvair fashionable leather boots). Or, when you bike, skinny jeans don't get tangled in your chain and gears. Same with guy capris. Maximum coverage with least dragging. Messenger bags also can be slid around until the body is at your back, resting on the back edge of your bicycle seat. Lots of things make sense here. Well, lots of things with the exception of me. I'm a living contradiction to Dutch fashion. Hopefully I'll be able to survive the next six weeks!
Peace!
My days are typically filled with exploring the surrounding city, searching out English books and good, quiet cafes (of which there are many, trust me). People like to peoplewatch, which is entirely enjoyable and completely normal. You just take a seat somewhere, whether it be on a bench in the plaza or at a cafe table with your drink, and stare pensively at the pairs of people walking by. Generally you glance and try and figure out what they're doing, what they're thinking, what they do for a living. It's pretty fun, and not many people are too disconcerted by it. Kids, young people, middleaged people, elders all peoplewatch.
The fashion is very different here. Rarely, if ever, will you see a boy (or even a girl) with "emo" bangs or hairstyle. Skinny jeans are in, tucked into the tops of ankle boots. Trenchcoats as well, because the weather here is drizzly at best. Messenger bags are also in use, and plenty of guys are wearing long shorts/short pants/what some girls call capris. But it all makes sense. Because it rains/drizzles quite a bit, and you don't want to get your pant legs wet. So, you wear skinny jeans so the hems don't get in the puddles (or tuck the hems into your vairvair fashionable leather boots). Or, when you bike, skinny jeans don't get tangled in your chain and gears. Same with guy capris. Maximum coverage with least dragging. Messenger bags also can be slid around until the body is at your back, resting on the back edge of your bicycle seat. Lots of things make sense here. Well, lots of things with the exception of me. I'm a living contradiction to Dutch fashion. Hopefully I'll be able to survive the next six weeks!
Peace!
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