Italy!
At this point we left Germany for Italy and our spiteful little GPS unit sent us over the Italian Alps, known as the Dolomites. This was not fun. David was sick. The roads were extremely narrow, twisty, steep and noticably without guardrails. I prayed a lot. That little side trip added a extra several hours to our journey. Ick.
Add to that that the hotel was not in Padua, but somewhere closer to Vicenza and the GPS refused to acknowledge that we were in Italy, that there were three roads all named the same thing (though it was actually not on any of them) and the police didn't know where it was and David's nose was a constant stream of snot and his throat a cacophony of coughing, it was not a fun time in the trip. Finally a guy on a motorcycle (incidentally a transplanted African who spoke French, German and Swahili and Italian but not English--I was embarrased by my Spanish and smattering of Swahili. The sicko in the seat beside me was more helpful with his German) took us to a corner we'd been past four or five times and pointed us down a street we'd been down several times and told us to drive until we were tired (um...) and we'd see it in the next town. Which we did. Lo an behold, far, far from where the directions said it was, it appeared, gleaming in the night. And my poor sweet honey finally got to go to bed at 5am.
Even though he was still sick the next day, we went into Venice for the day and made the best unplanned stop of the trip: a formal villa & gardens open to the public. It was gorgeous-- the sort of thing you see in a movie. Wide white gravel boulevards, formal fountains, bordered buy sculpture, a hedge maze, and wild, overgrown areas with gazebos and grottos and sculpture in abundance.
Look for three ruined sculptures in the pic above.
After Dachau we went to ...
Neuschwanstein! Which was truly gorgeous. Mad King Ludwig began building it but it was never completed. He was found floating in a nearby lake with the doctor who had signed the insanity papers a few days after they were drawn up. Hence, doors lead to nowhere and there's an entire floor that's not finished. Being incomplete does not lessen its opulance at all. It's one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever been in, but i couldn't help thinking about the wasted money--he built this castle for his own use while the people starved. Hmm. The tour was super fast. They really keep ya moving. This was a problem for people like me and my husband who like to slowly absorb and ponder.
The poor tired horsies dragged our sorry butts up the hill. We wouldn't have made our tour without them. We planned to walk down but it was getting dark and some Spanish tourists crammed us in their car with them. At the bottom of the mountain I finally got my wish to eat niffles in Germany. They tasted just like Gram's and Mom's so that question is settled.
My husband with his new Neuschwanstein stein. Happy husband. He drinks beer out of it often though it is now just the Neuschwanstein stein.
David saw this pic once we got home and asked in horrified tones if those were bullet holes in the bear. No, no, no. Not embroidered bullet holes. Embroidered edeilweiss.
This is our dog:
He looks like a:
His name is Grayson because he is:
Or more like a nice:
But I like to call him Steeeenky because he makes lots of:
He walked over to the:
and:
His brain is:
and he needs a:
So we bought a:
and dug a:
in the back yard. It's a doggie septic tank!
And not:
at all.
Yay!
ACK!
I'm learning about black beans. Driving me a little nuts. my husband likes to repackage things. Hence, when the instructions in the reciepe say "prepare beans according to package directions" there are no blankity blankity directions to follow.
So I ask the internet.
Dear internet: How do I prepare black beans? Thanks, Meg
The internet gave me many instructions. Instructions for soups and side dishes, for face masks and body scrubs (speaking of which, I found an awesome sea salt/citrus/oil body scrub receipe that did great things for my skin). But not to just cook the beans.
So here I am, 24 hours later, finally with a finished bean product.
They're kinda good.
But we're having pock chops for dinner.
Cumin still smells great though....
Dachau
This is a pic of the new people oven used for cremating dead bodies. Yes, that's still people ash in there. Off to both sides are rooms, about the size of a Lansing Parks & Rec. bathroom, that had bodies stacked to the ceiling because of the number of deaths and a shortage of coal near the end of the war. The allied soliders brought int the townspeople and made them carry out the corpses and bury them. That's one of the stunning things about the camp. It's not as though it's really out on its own or unnoticeable. It's a field away from town on one side and closer on the others, and was at the time of WWII. A trade road leads right past the open gravel square where prisoners were forced to stand exposed to the elements for hours. it's not as though the people of town could plead ignorance.
This is the old people oven (as opposed to the new, not the young). It interested me that Dachau was not an official death camp--it was a concentration and internment camp. Still, conditions were so bad, torture and experimentation so prolific and the commandants deemed sucessful by the turn over of theri prisoners (by shipment to Auschwitz, death by exposure, etc.) that it seems that was only a difference in terminology.
Dachau
Another effectiv euse of art. The jewish demon-spirit rising out of a synagoge with the house of worship given a demonic aspect too. Scary propaganda. Sadly, it also was effective.
This is the shower or cleaning room. the picuture is perfectly placed so that the images of the people appaer just where thy would have stood if you were standing in the photographer's place when it was taken. Eerie. And effective.
Looking out from the main office into the camp. The sculpture was placed later. It is quite tortured and chaotic. you can see the last standing baracks on either side of the tree-lined corridor and if you look very carefully, you can see the memrial to those who perished far in the bqackground. ther eare several memorials on the site. They aren't nearly as moving as the camp itself.
Um...this is in the wrong place. It's a church in a town in southern Germany that we went to just to get off the beaten path. they ahd a memorial listing all the people from the town that had disappeared, resisted or died durign the war. Just a little town, couldn't have been more than 500 people, but so many names!
This was in the memorial room at the end of the exibits. I simply thought it was an insightful piece of art.
I've always loved political cartoons. This one was in the first room of the Dachau administration building. The exhibits began well before Hitler was elected and ended a few months after the fall of the Third Reich. Notice the feather pen in the angelic being's hand. The Devil was the Nazi regime, stifling and sucking the blood/liberty out of Germany's press. Interesting that this cartoon showed up in the early 30's.
This picture was taken in Munich specifically so I could send it to my dad for Father's Day with a copy of the movie Big Fish. WE only had a few hours in Munich and did not get to the original Hofbrau House, but we did happen upon a church that had a choir inside the locked doors and a courtyard filled with huge, rough-hewn medieval blocks. We sat in the dark and listened to the voices soar through the streets as the choir practiced for Easter.
On the list of Great Stuff, we went to two Ostern Markets. Easter markets are filled with rabbits and eggs of all sorts. Our question when buying was, "Will the kids fight over this someday?" When we found this lady with her gorgeous painted eggs, there was no question. We bought one with the main square cathedral painted on it.
She had many designs...
...including a reproduction of The Last Supper (which was too rich for our blood)
Oh, the main square catherdral which is on our egg and the market is in front of.
Here is a pic of the mechanical clock at the catherdral-- seven little kings click by a big king paying a noisy, cool and somewhat strange homage to him, the king of kings (but not Jesus--just the head king of the kings at the time of the clock's construction).
And here is a gold thing that is important and decorative (dontcha love my knowledge base?) and a freshly wed couple hugging some street musicians that led them around and danced with them in the square. Bride's in the peach dress.
This was just too quirky not to photograph. Across from the church picutred below was a German hip-hop store complete with FUBU jeans, EKCO wear and a hefty supply of this brand of very honestly named spray paint.
Snails were the feet of the relic box at the center of the church. No real idea why they chose snails. The guy at the door gave us a long explanation in german that neither of us even vaguely understood.
A pic of a photograph of the street with the church and hip hip shop during a Nazi rally. Southern Germans seem more in touch with holocaust history. There are many small displays and markers that clearly explain events many would rather forget but must be remembered or they may repeat.
The church the pictures below & above are from. St-something-or-other. It was David's first European cathedral and his jaw hit the floor. We racheted it up by degrees as we traveled so his jaw got to keep dropping. Love that.
Crazy discus-throwing cat-man sculpture by the Heidelberg bridge. There are small shiny brass mice and a plaque by them. No idea what it's all about but they caught my imagination. It also intrigued me that the cat man was empty-faced (I could fit my head into his head--I have pictures) but rather anatomically correct. No baby catmen. No, no, no.
Mmmm... Art that belongs with the cathedral above.
Plague art that goes with the cathedral above.
Heidelberg Castle as seen from the world heritage bridge that goes with Catman (ba-da-dad-de-dadada-it's the cat man!)
Me on World Heritage Bridge over the Rhine. Those bricks behind me have international protection. Do we have our priorities out of whack that the children in Sudan do not have the same protection?
Gate of World Heritage Bridge. I liked it. Kinda Dr. Suessy.
