Bonjour from Paris!
In the month since I last wrote, we took in the sights and culinary delights of Austria, Germany, Paris, and Prague. My last installment was in the form of a daily play-by-play, but I think 30+ days likely exceeds your interest in my life as well as my own ability to remember what happened. Instead, I offer these random tales and experiences.
Food
The Germans eat wurst while the French prefer foie gras, but asparagus seems to know no borders. This time of year, asparagus, and especially white asparagus, is the darling vegetable in this part of Europe. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get green asparagus, but the Europeans generally consider white asparagus special and better. Almost every restaurant has asparagus with hollandaise sauce on the menu, but it's not uncommon for restaurants to have a full and separate "Asparagus menu," which can include everything from asparagus ravioli to asparagus ice cream (fairly yummy, but then again, it IS ice cream!) I even ran across asparagus vinegar from a vendor at the Vienna Naschmarkt (like the Pike Place Market, but bigger) that claimed to be the world's smallest commercial vinegar producer.
(Note: To achieve white asparagus, growers keep dirt mounded around the emerging stalk, depriving it of light. The plant cannot produce chlorophyll without light, thus there is no green color to the stalks. White asparagus is more tender than green and considered milder in flavor, but I think it's milder to the point of bland. It still makes your pee smell weird though, if you're one of the people who experiences that particular phenomenon.)
Also, I ate a new dish (for me) fried cucumbers in cream sauce. Quite delicious.
Hot Springs
In German, the word "bad" (pronounced "bahdt") means "bath, bathe, or swimming." Towns throughout Germany and Austria with "bad" in the name usually sprung up (couldn't resist) due to hot springs in the area and often have a resort culture focused on wellness. You might recall that Joe was very sick when I last wrote. We drove to Bad Reichenhall in search of hot water for him to have a good hot soak and hopefully kill his bug. As it turned out, he crawled straight into bed at the hotel leaving Mom and me to stroll through town, which, it turns out, had transformed its hot springs into a full blown resort complete with water slide park. We left the next day, probably the only people ever to visit looking for the baths who did not dip even a toe in the healing waters. By the way, sleep did the trick and Joe was much improved the next day, although his sniffles lingered for weeks.
Wiesbaden (notice "bad" in the middle of the name) is where we stayed the last night before Mom returned home, and she and I met a homeless man by one of the public fountains (hot and salty). He told us that the famous physician, Albert Schweitzer, had played the church organ just up the road from where we stood. (Mom knew that Schweitzer was an accomplished organist, so we believed the man's story.) By the way, Wiesbaden has a great Cuban restaurant called "Havana" that I recommend if you're ever in the area.
Music
Speaking of organs, I learned that an organ that my grandfather played in Bavaria later made its way to one of the churches in Luebeck where I was an exchange student.
Mom and I went to mass last Sunday at the Salzburg cathedral where she sometimes attended mass as a girl. Two professional choruses drew a packed house and made it seem more like attending a concert than church.
We heard much more modest musical offerings at the Corpus Christi mass in a small Bavarian town call Schlesching. Every year, a rural church is chosen to have this particular mass televised across Germany and this year it was a church only a few kilometers from where my Mom grew up. My aunt, uncle, Mom and I arrived just in time to find the small church with standing room only. From my spot in the back corner I had a perfect view of the scaffolding and movie set lighting, and when the crowd sat I could see four cameras, including two steady cams. The priest's voice cracked from nerves as he endured his 60 minutes of fame. At least half of the attendees were dressed in "Trachten" (the traditional Bavarian dresses and lederhosen) and the town was decorated with ribbons and flowers in anticipation of the procession to follow mass. Alas, mother nature saw fit to send spring showers, so the procession was canceled, and instead everyone dashed out the church door, down the gravel path through the cemetery, and across the street into the Gasthaus where the waitresses were waiting with beer and wurst to go around. An "um-pah" band completed the picture with traditional and festive Bavarian music.
The last musical highlight to relate is getting standing room only tickets to Don Giovanni at the Vienna opera. After a long day of walking, our legs only lasted through the first act, but we got our 3 Euros worth.
Museums
I'm not a big museum goer. Generally, an hour is good for me with two hours being the limit before my brain seizes up, everything goes blurry, and all attention turns toward one or another bodily function, whether it be a potty break, nap, or finding some kind of sustenance to break up the monotony of concentrating on little plaques detailing the history and meaning of the various works. Despite my limited interest and attention span, during six weeks of travel in Europe, you almost can't help hitting a museum here or there. These highlights indicate the pedestrian nature of my art appreciation, but here they are nonetheless.
"The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt is the pièce de résistance of the Belvedere museum's Klimt collection in Vienna. The side of a coffee mug simply doesn't do it justice. Klimt, by the way, preferred a square format and The Kiss is 71" x 71."
At a mere 30" x 21," the "Mona Lisa" is less than half the size of "The Kiss." For those who have not yet been to the Louvre to see it, its relatively small size is exaggerated by the large wall on which it hangs. The curators could turn it into a modern art exhibit merely by moving the painting from the middle of the wall to the upper right hand corner and call the piece "Stamped Envelope."
The Musee d'Orsay in Paris has the most fantastic collection of impressionist paintings. They have full rooms for each painter--Degas, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, and the list goes on. Mom and I were there for five hours, which, given my opening paragraph to this section, is the highest recommendation I can confer.
Interesting side note: All of the museums allowed us to take pictures--without flash, of course, but still, odd by my experience.
Animals
Wild storks nest in an Austrian town called Rust (pronounced "roost"). On the way there, we were lucky to see eight of them walking through a freshly mowed field hunting for frogs. I have a picture of one that strolled within five feet of the car.
We saw a practice session of the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Their goal is to create "unparalleled harmony between rider and horse," which even my unpracticed dressage eye could tell they had achieved. Unfortunately, my lack of experience translated into lack of appreciation, turning their unparalleled harmony into unparalleled monotony. They rode in circles, sometimes fast, sometimes slow; sometimes even sideways or backwards. I tried to focus on how the subtle hand movements translated into the horses' movements, but it was mostly lost on me. I think the actual performance would be more entertaining than the practice session and would recommend that for any casual spectators. The building itself is interesting--it's cavernous with 46 columns and 3 tiers in the heart of downtown Vienna, exclusively used by this riding school. Talk about location!
The Police
On the day of my uncle Christoph's 80th birthday party we came out of the hotel to find our rear license plate gone. We ended up at a really small police station first with one officer, then two, then finally three were fully engrossed in helping us--one on the computer, one writing a document by hand, and one with paper, glue stick, marker, ruler and a really long pair of scissors drawing a new license plate for us.
People
I love Germany and Austria, because I love the people. Not in the abstract, but in the specific.
Christoph & Kirsten Beringer are my aunt and uncle who live in a beautiful apartment in Salzburg with a sweeping view of the castle. Christoph worked as an economist at the United Nations and due to his career, they lived all over the world. The international influence and flare is woven into their life--the art in the front hallway is from Turkey, books and newspapers on the coffee table are in English, Italian, French and German (and they actually read them!), discussions range from politics to linguistics, botany to tales of their various travels. He plays violin, she the piano. Oh, and Kirsten is a fantastic cook. I feel inspired to read more, learn more.
Mike & Brigitte Moellers are my host parents from my exchange student days and live in the outskirts of Luebeck far in the north of Germany near the Baltic Sea. Warm and cozy describes both them and their home. Their house is full of fun and funny gifts, pictures, poems, and cards--some store bought, I'd dare say most handmade--by the dozens and dozens of family, neighbors, coworkers, and friends from the Unitarian church, dance club, and other community groups to which they belong. They are full of life and fun, and there is no better treat for me than sitting in their wintergarden, getting up to say "Hi" to the neighbors Nino & Tina over the backyard fence, saying a quack to the ducks that roam their backyard, then heading back in to set the table for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Doesn't matter which, because sitting and drinking and eating and visiting is fantastic...anytime of day.
Kerstin is Mike & Brigitte's daughter and she lives in a small village outside of Paderborn (central Germany) with her husband, Jean-Pierre, and 16-year-old daughter, Amelie. They live in an old farmhouse with a huge front door that looks like a barn entrance. The neighbors said they couldn't paint the door red...but they did! You can see why I love them.
Some people not in Germany have been close to my heart. My thoughts have been with Johanna and Steve. You see, on June 5, our friend Steve Rider passed away from a rare blood cancer. If you want to be inspired about how to life life to the fullest, have a sense of humor, and never say quit, then read his blog at: http://steversweb.blogspot.
Many of you also know that my sister-in-law, Linda Carrico, has been battling lung and bone cancer for almost two years. Recently, she started having seizures and we got the news last week that they are caused by a tumor in her head. I spoke to her a couple days ago and she said she's still fighting. She and Michael were stationed in Germany for awhile and took every opportunity to travel and enjoy life. I'm following her example.
Please keep Michael & Linda and Steve & Johanna in your thoughts and prayers.
And so much more...
Seeing the schools where Mom went to school, doing laundry at a Paris laundromat (in French!), visiting ice caves, rain & hail, walking through beautiful gardens, taking boat rides, birthday party on a mountain, interesting shops...the list goes on and on...but this email doesn't. :-)
Hugs and kisses!
Annie
