Germany 2022
| 2022-08-13: Research | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2022-08-14: Fly to Germany | ||
| Our first flight today isn’t until 4:30pm. Nancy Nancy is coming by around noon to take us to the airport. It seems just so odd to be going to the airport at such a civilized time. I’m way to used to having to leave in the wee hours. This is nice. Yesterday and today my brain just magically woke up at midnight, which is 8am in Germany, so I went with it. Getting up and staying up. Last night I managed to go to sleep a bit early… like maybe 8:00 or so. That’s not enough sleep but it’ll do for now until we get used to Germany.
| ||
| 2022-08-15: Fly to Germany Day 2 | ||
| Our flights are on two separate itineraries: WestJet to London then EasyJet to Berlin, so a little more complicated if something goes wrong. \n\n Our first flight, out of Edmonton, was late arriving and then had a mechanical issue. I had visions of our whole journey going bad. \n\n They decided that the plane was ok to go so they boarded us, only a little late. \n\n On the tarmac, the plane was making some kind of ungodly howling sound as we herky jerkied our way to the runway. I thought for sure they were going to bail and make us switch planes, which would have made us miss Calgary to London, which would have made us miss London to Berlin. \n\n To my utter amazement, they proceeded with the flight, pretending there was no ungodly howling or herky-jerky-ing at all. We learned later that their ground steering was the problem so they had to improvise how they steered on the ground only. \n\n The connection in Calgary was seamless, but we had less than two hours in London to go through customs, collect our bags, te-check-in and get on the flight to Berlin. My bad. I should have planned a longer layover in London. \n\n We landed on time in London, with no wiggle room for error, and thankfully we didn’t need any. Got our bags, found the EasyJet counters, dropped our bags, zoomed through security, had a quick bathroom break, bought some Galaxy chocolate and headed straight to our departure gate. Whew!\n Annnnd… then we got delayed on the tarmac in London. Traffic congestion, thunderstorms and military activity. Oh my. Brigitte and Dietmar were waiting for us at the airport and it was very easy to find them and get underway. \n We drove to Spremberg, including a couple of really enthusiastic rain showers, which was nice given the horribly dry year. \n They had a special ‘Rhonda and Brent’ Canadian flag, and ‘Family Meeting 2022´ t-shirts prepared for our arrival - how sweet! \n As I had feared, my German skills leave a lot to be desired. Good thing they’re patient!
| ||
| 2022-08-16: Lübbenau und Lehde | ||
| Today was another super special day in my life. We met Dietmar and his wife, Brigitte, yesterday, and today we spent the day with them. They took us to Lübbenau where we met Dietmar’s sister, Brigitte, and her husband, Georg. \n Georg gave us a personal tour of the Spreewald canals in his boat. We stopped for lunch and then continued on to Lehde, which was on my list of the Moët beautiful places in Germany. Wow! What a special treat! We went through the Lehde museum with Dietmar and Georg. \n In Lübbenau, we also met Brigitte and Georg’s children, Derk and Kerstin. Kerstin and I are almost the same age, and I have invited her to come visit in Canada. I hope she does someday! About Lehde:\n Built along narrow green-banked canals, little Lehde is one of the oldest and most charming villages of Brandenburg's Spreewald area. It's best discovered by boat – specifically on one of the region's traditional Spreewald boats. Or you could hire a kayak to make your own way along the wooden farmhouse-lined waterways, stopping to buy some of the area's famed pickles from farm shops. Glimpse what life was like in this rural community during the 19th century at the village’s captivating open-air museum. We went to Brigitte’s son’s house for dinner tonight. He and his wife have a lovely home and three great kids. We had an awesome dinner outside and a lively conversation in German and English .
| ||
| 2022-08-17: Eye Windows in Görlitz | ||
| Today, Dietmar and Brigitte took us on the train to Görlitz. It is a very interesting and beautiful city. Brent and I were particularly fond of the Ratsapoteke building (see below). \n We took a bus tour of the city, but everything was only in German. Armed with printed info from Brigitte, and our brains, we managed to understand about 10% of the tour. For the rest we just made up our own stories. \n After the tour, we walked over the bridge to Poland. It was our first time ever in Poland. Very cool. \n After Poland, and before heading back to Spremberg, we visited/climbed Nikolai Tower, which was super interesting. We have been planning to get the €9 special transit pass for our travels to the end of the month. Today, we got them - Dietmar bought them for us. Contrary to how the info read on the web, we did not have to buy a complete three-month pass for €27 - we were able to just get the August passes and away we went.
| ||
| 2022-08-18: Rakotzbrücke and Bad Muskau | ||
| Quite a while before our actual visit I had asked Dietmar if we could go see Rakotsbrücke. His original plan was that we would ride there by bicycle, about a 20km hilly ride. It has been too hot for riding, so instead we took the car and also visited Bad Muskau, and a couple of sites in Spremberg itself: the Bismarck tower and the beautiful building that houses the music school and library. About Rakotsbrücke:\n This jaw-dropping 19th-century bridge uses its reflection to form what appears to be a perfect circle.\n\n NESTLED AMONG THE VERDANT FOLIAGE in Kromlau, Germany’s Kromlauer Park, is a delicately arched devil’s bridge known as the Rakotzbrücke, which was specifically built to create a circle when it is reflected in the waters beneath it. \n\n Commissioned in 1860 by the knight of the local town, the thin arch stretching over the waters of the Rakotzsee is roughly built out of varied local stone. Like many similarly precarious spans across Europe, the Rakotzbrücke is known as a “devil’s bridge,” due to the colloquialism that such bridges were so dangerous or miraculous that they must have been built by Satan. While the bridge (as with all the others) was created by mortal hands, its builders did seem to hold the aesthetics of the bridge in higher regard than its utility.\n\n Either end of the Rakotzbrücke is decorated with thin rock spires created to look like natural basalt columns, which occur in many places in Germany. In addition, the curvature of the bridge is designed to be one half of a perfect circle, so that when the waters are still and the light is right, it creates the illusion of a complete stone circle.\n\n Today, the bridge can still be viewed in the park, but crossing the aging relic is prohibited in order to preserve it.
| ||
| 2022-08-19: Drive to Oberndorf | ||
| We traveled by car today with Dietmar and Brigitte, from Spremberg in the northeast to Oberndorf am Neckar in the southwest, a drive of about eight hours including one small stop. Most of our journey was on the autobahn, which was a completely different experience for us. When we’ve been in Germany before we’ve always traveled (1) very slowly by bicycle from idyllic small town to idyllic small town, or (2) by train from town/city Centre to town/city Centre. It’s so similar to traveling in North America from this perspective. I am so very grateful to the internet rando who, just before we left for Germany, recommended data plans from KeepGo. I got the Pisces plan because it included not only Germany, but also the other countries we’re planning to visit next year (Spain, France and Switzerland). \n My data plan so far has worked great just about everywhere we’ve been, and if my usage stays about the same, this whole trip should cost me only about $10 or $15. A pleasant change from Rogers’ ‘Roam Like Home’ which costs $15 (or more) per day!! When we got close to Oberndorf, we stopped to put on our Family Meeting T-shirts and then continued to Guido’s house where we were met by the whole family… also wearing Family Meeting T-shirts. They played the Canadian National anthem while they re-hung the Brent and Rhonda flag. Even Erik was wearing one, and he introduced himself in English and told us that he is now four years old.\n Ira was taking her mom out for a special birthday dinner tonight so the rest of us had a beer and then proceeded off to a beer festival, then back to Guido’s house where we had a special Bavarian dinner prepared entirely by Guido who is a professional cook. \n Brent and I are completely blown away by how friendly and wonderful everyone is. Dietmar and Brigitte have been so welcoming and enthusiastic to have us, and now that we’re with the rest of the family, it is more of the same. Completely wonderful and amazing. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found these folks - the long-lost relatives of my dad’s maternal grandmother. \n I just wish I could tell my grandma all about it. She would be astonished. After her family left Germany for Russia in the early 1800s and then fled to Canada in the early 1900’s, then tried to go back because my great-grandma was so homesick but they couldn’t because WW 1 had started, then lost most of their German heritage due to persecution of Germans in Canada during WW 2, then completely lost touch with family in Germany, all the way to us finding each other again due to some great genealogy, a unique last name, and a DNA test… well, it’s almost miraculous. \n Guido and Claudia’s family is Catholic and never left Germany. Dietmar’s family (and mine), Protestants, left Germany for Crimea. When the Germans started fleeing Russia, our family left, but Dietmar’s side went to East Germany while mine continued on to Canada. And yet, here we are, all together, because we share the last name Laggai.
| ||
| 2022-08-20: Thyssenkrupp Turm, Crystals and Rottweil | ||
| Today Guido took us all out for a tour in the general area of Oberndorf. \n We started with a visit to the Thyssenkrupp Testturm - a tower for testing elevator technology. \n We then waited out a rain storm at the Welt der Kristalle. \n Then we visited Rottweil, thé town where Guido, Claudia and Gertrudis grew up. We climbed the hochturm (high tower), the oldest building in Rottweil, and Guido took us into a Chinese restaurant which is the only building in town with original construction that you can see. Claudia told us all about the local Carnival, which sounds amazing. Ira had also told us about Carnival and the masks and costumes, including the very heavy bells that the people wear. Claudia has a costume and participates in the parade. She says she’s going to send us a link so we can watch it live next year. \n We came back to Guido and Gertrudis’ house for afternoon coffee and then Claudia, Guido and Brent went for a little bike ride while Gertrudis filled me in on her improved plan for us to get to Marburg. We didn’t know about the terrible problems with the Stuttgart train station so we will avoid that on Monday, and I’m also going to change our trip plan for next year to also avoid flying home from Stuttgart, which is my current plan. \n Later we went back to the Bochingen Biergarten Fest for dinner. \n Then back to the house where I saw Elon Musk’s satellite train go by. I hollered for Brent and he got here on time to see it (and tell me what it was). We both hollered for Dietmar but he didn’t make it on time to see it.
| ||
| 2022-08-21: Black Forest and Lake Constance | ||
| Today, Guido took us on a cross-country sight-seeing tour from Oberndorf to Bodensee (Lake Constance). We saw some beautiful places and enjoyed revisiting the Donau from a different perspective. We had a long break at Bodensee, which is very busy and touristy, and I think we will avoid Bodensee when we cycle tour next year. After Bodensee we visited the spring for the river Aach. Long ago people didn’t know exactly where the water came from, and they put salt in the Donau upstream and confirmed that some of the water comes from it. Tonight Guido made Schwabishe Pizza for dinner and we had a great last visit with everyone here. Tomorrow, Brent and I will move on, Dietmar and Brigitte will return to Spremberg, and life here in Oberndorf will go back to normal. What an amazing time we’ve had. Hopefully some of my new family will come visit in Canada. Either way we will be back in the south of Germany next year, and hopefully back in the north in five years or so. Tonight we sleep in the tent. The last couple of nights we’ve slept in the spare room downstairs, which has been mostly good, but every day I get a little more Bodo-Krank (Bodo is the dog). Rather than further injure my lungs we’ve decided to sleep in the tent.
| ||
| 2022-08-22: To Marburg | ||
| I had originally hoped that Dietmar and Brigitte would drop us off in Stuttgart today when they were on their way home. Dietmar suggested a train from Oberndorf instead - handy for us and doesn’t require them to leave the highway to go into the city with us. We told Guido and Gertrudis about the new plan and they had more info for us - the Stuttgart hbf is being remodeled and it is not going well. There are many problems with trains in and out of Stuttgart. Instead, they suggested that we drive together to Freudenstadt, then take the train together to Karlsruhe. At Karlsruhe, Brent and I would carry on to Frankfurt then Marburg, and they would take Erik to the zoo in Karlsruhe, which was something they had already planned to do. \n The rest of our journey to Marburg was uneventful, albeit a little long. The walk from the station to the campground was only about 1km. There was lots of room left in the zeltplatz for us so we set up and then went for a quick dinner and walk-around in town. We miss the Laggais already, and setting up a tent in Germany felt very odd without Laura here to share the fun. We haven’t seen tons of Marburg yet, but so far it is definitely living up to the hype of it being one of the most beautiful places to see in Germany. About Marburg:\n The small university town of Marburg is a labyrinth of higgledy streets with its well-preserved half-timbered houses rising up the hill on the west bank of the Lahn river. Its Elisabethkirche is Germany's oldest pure Gothic cathedral. Perched on the highest point, the imposing 13th-century castle Landgrafenschloss looms over the pretty town. For more wonderful views, hike up to the Spiegelslustturm (Kaiser Wilhelm Tower), or to soak in the river scenery take a pedal boat trip.
| ||
| 2022-08-23: Day in Marburg | ||
| The original plan for today was to take a side trip to Alsfeld but we decided that we’d rather see Marburg thoroughly rather than both places in a rushed way. \n We started with a walk up to Kaiser Wilhelm Turm because we’d prefer to do a big climb before it gets too warm. On the way back we stopped at Spiegelslust and enjoyed first coffee at around noon. We then walked back to town and checked out the old town, walked up to the Schloss, and then more old town. I started getting some heat symptoms, so we slowed down for a while, put my cooling cloth on my head and had a beer back at Ufer Cafe
| ||
| 2022-08-24: To Goslar | ||
| I learned an expensive lesson regarding my KeepGo data plan yesterday. Turns out that using maps all day, exchanging photos with the Laggais, and uploading pics to DAMDetails actually burns through a lot of data. Who knew!!?? D’uh. I’ve switched data roaming off on all of my apps, and I’m trying to recharge my KeepGo. Good thing I have paper backups. \n\n Our E9 rail passes are working out great! I just wish the program was going to be continued in September. Since it isn’t, we’re thinking about renting a car for the first week of September. \n\n We had a good long journey to Goslar today, skipping over Trendleberg. We will probably only do one side trip from here although we have three to choose from. \n\n After we got to town we decided to walk to the campground instead of using the bus. The campground is a ways out of town… I think moving forward we’ll use the bus. We had a long 3km walk on a trail that sometimes forgot to exist. When we got to the campground, it was very nice and the proprietor says we’re the first Canadian guests she’s ever had. Cool! There is no restaurant here so we made do with skanky cheese that Brent has been carrying since Canada, almonds that I’ve been carrying since Canada, plus beers, potato chips and kuchen from the little campground cantina. \n\n There seems to be one place in this campground where the Wifi works - a small set of stairs to nowhere, near the wash building. Me and a 13-year-old boy have been sharing the spot. \n\n
| ||
| 2022-08-25: Hahnenklee and Goslar | ||
| Our campsite came with complementary passes to use the 830 bus which comes by here. What a great thing! We were both interested in seeing the waterworks in the area, and the best place to see some is up at Hahnenklee (which is sort of Goslar’s ‘Whistler’ before Whistler got crazy busy). Considering that Hahnenklee is a 7km (one way) walk, we didn’t thing we would go but then we figured out that the 830 goes there! \n\n So, off we went first thing in the morning to Hahnenklee. We had breakfast and coffee at Moock Cafe then we went for a walk on Libesbankweg, which is one of the local hiking trails that takes you up past the Hahnenklee gondola, then around to see several of the lakes and dams of the area. \n\n After Hahnenklee, we came back to the campground briefly and then set out for Goslar. We had a poke around the beautiful city and had dinner and beer before returning to the campground for the night. I started feeling like I might be coming down with something this morning. I often get a kind of scratchy throat when I’m getting dehydrated, so I thought that’s what it was but then the scratchy throat started to feel more like I’m getting sick. I did a Covid test - if I have it I’d like to know asap so I can quarantine. The test was negative. The scratchy throat progressed to my ‘I feel like my lungs are stuffed with pink fiberglass insulation ‘ feeling that I get when I’m sick. Sigh. If I’m sick I’m going to track down the two asshats who were on the train(s) to Marburg and left their masks off until AFTER they coughed and/or sneezed and put the boots to them.
| ||
| 2022-08-26: Day trip to Wernigerode | ||
| I’m coughing more today but feeling less sick than yesterday. I’ll do another Covid test tomorrow before we leave Goslar, just in case. I’ve emailed Cousin Robert so he can make an informed decision about meeting us on Sunday. Cousin Robert opted to try and meet up with us later in our trip. I think that’s a good choice. Hopefully it works out. \n\n It has been quite warm here just about every day. I don’t deal well with hot hot heat, but one thing I’ve discovered is that I can wear my cooling cloth as a head scarf. What a relief!! Why didn’t I think of this before!\n We’re taking this trip at a slower pace than I had planned - skipping some side trips in order to enjoy and explore places more thoroughly. From Goslar we had three possible day trips - Trendelburg, Quedlinburg and Wernigerode. We chose Wernigerode simply because it was the shortest trip to and from Goslar. It is a truly hidden gem. Or, at least hidden from Canadian tourists. There were more than enough German tourists to make up for the lack, though. \n We’re keeping the day short to give me another opportunity for an early night as, although I’m feeling better than yesterday, I’m still not feeling great. The heat on this trip is killing me. A couple of times when we were with the Laggais I just completely wilted. I hoped that I would grow accustomed to it but that’s not happening. I have read that once you’ve had heat stroke you’re more likely to really suffer in the heat and I think that’s what’s happening to me. We’re rethinking the rest of this trip. We have been talking about renting a car as of September 1st because the nine euro tickets will be finished then. That opens up lots of opportunities for us to go where it’s cooler if my plotted route is going to keep us in the heat. We’re also rethinking Mexico and our next cycle tour. I think that touring in Mexico might just not be possible for me. So we will have to go back to the drawing board for a winter trip. Maybe we’ll still go to Merida or someplace else in Mexico. Or maybe we’ll head back to Bequia to see Susan. For the cycle tour, I’m thinking about shifting it earlier again. Maybe starting in Barcelona in April, heading north through Spain and France, then east into Germany to do the Neckar north to south, then to be up in Switzerland in June. I’ll have to research weather normals to figure out if that’s a reasonable plan.
| ||
| 2022-08-27: To Lüneburg, got the ‘Rona | ||
| Leaving the Campingplatz was a bit of an adventure this morning. It started raining yesterday evening and rained on and off through the night. It gave us a nice little reprieve for tearing down and packing up this morning, which was nice, and we were able to check out and have a coffee before the 8:42 bus. The busses have been running a little unpredictably, so we walked across to the stop as soon as we were ready, which was about 8:25. It was drizzling when we walked over, but soon the downpour started and oh how it poured down. Our Larry Ponchos failed the Rain Poncho Test. They are better than nothing… by a small margin… but we will be replacing them with Euro Store ponchos at our earliest opportunity. The rain eased up slightly just before the full bus flew past us with the bus driver waving both arms to indicate either there was a wasp in his cabin, or he wasn’t stopping for us. He didn’t stop for us. How disappointing. Brent suggested calling a cab but since our German SIM (c/o Dietmar) is only for emergencies, we went back to the Campingplatz and asked the attendant to call one for us. The rain stopped and 15 minutes later we’re in a cab enroute to the banhof, back on schedule for our trains to Lüneburg. \n As the day went on, my cold started getting the better of me and then our train to Lüneburg was canceled. Our new route involved a milk run with two extra transfers. The way things have been going with tight connections I was doubtful as to when we would actually get to Lüneburg, but it worked out ok. Bonus train 1 worked great. Bonus train 2 was running almost 15 minutes late so re resigned ourselves to taking the one-hour-later bonus train 3 (thankfully there was such a thing). But when we got to Uelzen, to our delight, they had held bonus train 3 and we arrived in Lüneburg before 3pm. Yay!\n After a great meal in Lüneburg, we made our way to our Airbnb which is awesome. I felt my ambition melting away again, and although I was sure I just had a cold, I did another Covid test just to be sure. Well… dammit. I have the dread disease. We don’t know yet if Brent has it - he doesn’t seem to have symptoms… yet. That’ll change our trip plan for the next week or so. I’m glad, though, that we got our fourth poke before we left Canada.
| ||
| 2022-08-28: Isolation Day (R4, B1) in Lüneburg | ||
| Brent started getting symptoms last night. I don’t think we’ll bother testing him yet. We’ll just assume and isolate. So far both of us have mild symptoms - it just feels like a cold. The current requirements in Germany are to isolate for five days from onset of symptoms. Since I didn’t know I had it for 2.5 days (d’oh!) that means I have to isolate through Sunday. Since Brent started getting definite symptoms at end of day on Saturday, we’ll assume that we need to continue isolating through Thursday and we’ll hopefully be clear by Friday, September 2nd. \n I have talked to the Laggais, and it sounds like none of them have it, which is good. It also supports my theory that we were exposed on the train(s) to Marburg on Monday. A pox on those asshats who were coughing and sneezing on the train without masks on. \n Guido has offered his place to isolate, and Ira has offered help if we need it. Hopefully we won’t need anything, but it is so nice that they’ve offered, and we have folks to call if things get more serious. I woke up before 6:00 this morning feeling pretty good (relatively speaking). I suggested to Brent that we go for a walk around town while everyone else is still sleeping so that we can at least see some of this beautiful place while we’re here. For all the times I’ve wished that the throngs of tourists would get out of the way of my photos… well, it would seem that they actually add to the appeal. The empty city was a little lonely and stark. We saw lots of beautiful places, but I think my favorite was a little street called Auf dem Meere. We were back to our AirBnB before 8am to do some resting and isolating. We had a reservation to stay at a hostel in Lübeck on the 31st. I have canceled that and we will go straight from here to a campground near Stralsund to continue our isolation. This is our second major illness while traveling. The first time was when Brent got the *Budapest Sewer Belly in Croatia. That time we spent several days laid up in Ogulin watching the **Kuna Bin in our AirBnB. Today we’re kinda missing the Kuna Bin. \n\n 2015 Blog: http://www.damdetails.com/trips/triplog/1/130\n\n * Not a real thing, and therefore, not really what he had\n ** Not a real thing. We made up the term to describe the English movies shown on Croatian tv. They’re the worst of the worst. Even worse than what you would find in the $1 bin in a Blockbuster Video. We wouldn’t even pay a dollar to watch those movies. Since a Kuna was worth about 1/5 of a dollar, we decided that Croatia must be buying their movies from the ‘Kuna Bin’
| ||
| 2022-08-29: Isolation day (R5 B2) in Lüneburg | ||
| Notes to Mom:\n R: Good morning. We’re going to go out for an early walk again so we’re at least out of the house for a little while today.\n\n M: How are you both feeling? I guess not too bad if you're going for an early walk? *hugs*\n\n R: We’re both still a little sick. Not so bad that we can’t go for a walk but bad enough that we know we’re sick. Today is my last day of required isolation but only Brent’s second. Of course I will isolate as long as he has to.\n\n R: It’s not as easy to isolate when you’re traveling though. We’re going to have to take three trains tomorrow to get to our next spot. We’ll have to just wear our best masks and hope we don’t hurt anyone. We left before 6:00 for an early morning walk today. I wanted to go down to Am Stintmsrkt on the old harbor as the pics from there look really great. We weren’t disappointed! It was beautiful. The city started coming to life much earlier today than yesterday though so we high-tailed it back home a little after 7:00 so as to not expose people.
| ||
| 2022-08-30: To Altefähr, Isolation Day B3 | ||
| We left Lüneburg this morning heading for the campground at Altefähr. Three trains. The first train was 23 minutes of absolute cluster. The first part of the second train was similar only not quite as bad. We were happy to make both of our connections and arrive on Insel Rügen. We were really grateful that we’re both feeling pretty good and our bodies cooperated with regards to not sneezing and coughing on the trains. \n When we reached the station for Altefähr, I didn’t even realize it was a station. It looked like the middle of a field. Brent opened the train door and looked out and said he thought it was the stop. I though no freakin’ way. He was like yeah I think this is it. Looking at the progress board, Altefähr had disappeared and I realized that it was, in fact, it, and we jumped off the train into the middle of the field. \n The town of Altefähr is very nice and the campground is too. We really enjoyed (and envied) all of the cycle tourists riding in and watching the zeltplatz fill up. EV10 goes around Insel Rügen so we’re not surprised to see all of the cycle tourists rolling in. It is surprising, however, to see how many people are rolling in with children. Brent thinks maybe they live on the island, or in Stralsund, and are just giving the kinder a taste of cycle touring.
| ||
| 2022-08-31: Altefähr, Isolation Day B4 | ||
| We both feel pretty good today, but not symptom-free yet. We spent a couple of hours doing a thorough walk around Alrefähr and then just hung out in the zeltplatz. We were hoping that tomorrow would be our day to re-test hoping for negative, but the way we feel today, we’re thinking that tomorrow will be another isolation day for us. After sleeping away the afternoon we went for a bit of a walk down to the beach. It was interesting.
| ||
| 2022-09-01: Altefähr, Isolation Day B5 | ||
| We both feel better today but still not 100%. It’s another rest and isolate day. We had a breakfast picnic down by the water, looking at Stralsund across the channel and watching the swans on the water. We learned that swans sometimes keep one foot out of the water for rest and heat transfer. We also learned that Altefähr, which means ‘old ferry’, has been Altefähr since the 1200’s. Now THAT’S an ollllld ferry!! \nWe went for a walk along the cycle path. It’s the Ostsee route but also part of EV10. We did about 4km round and the trail is… well it’s not so good. It’s dirt, gravel, and in places broken concrete. Some of the gravel is very sharp chert. I don’t think we’ll put it on our tour lust anytime soon. After our walk, we provisioned up at Dit & Dat and then had picnic lunch down at the beach. I can definitely think of worse places to isolate. \n After lunch we had a nap then went back to the beach for a snack. We finally had the chance to sit on the swivelly chairs. Turns out they’re not so great. Really uncomfortable posture and hard on the butt!
| ||
| 2022-09-02: Altefähr isolation day | ||
| We tested Brent this morning and he’s still positive. We’re going to spend two more nights at the Altefähr campground and then move on, as is allowed by the current Germany restrictions, and advised by the cdc. We’re mostly hanging out today, and I’m making new travel plans. We had breakfast on the beach again today. Our two swan friends came back, and for the second day in a row spent some time on the ocean ramp preening. We noticed that they both have silver rings on their legs, which confirms our suspicion that they are married. ;) As fascinating as watching Bob and Frank (our swans) is, I had to do something today. I did laundry. Using one of the dry bags that I bought for travel laundry. Seems to have worked ok, but the proof will be in whether or not we deem our Covid-laden bandanas to be actually clean or not. Stand by…. I am quite happy with having the iPhone as my only tech on this trip. Sometimes I miss having the Surface, and sometimes I miss having two separate devices, but for the most part I’m managing. I can Detail my DAMs, and I’ve been able to book travel and accommodation. Thanks to Gertrudis, it was really easy to find transportation that was eligible under the nine euro ticket in August, and now that that’s over, the OMIO app is proving to be worth its weight for finding and booking transport.
| ||
| 2022-09-03: Ferry to Stralsund | ||
The ferry from Altefähr is open-air and we’re feeling pretty good so off we went today. We explored the city a bit but mostly went on a quest for bike helmets. Our tour sells them for E40 but we would like to find cheaper ones if possible. Schnitzel and beer in the sun and then we returned to Altefähr.
| ||
| 2022-09-04: To Hamburg | ||
| One of life’s unsung pleasures: packing up a dry tent. Unless something changes again, today will be our last morning packing up our tent on this trip. We are grateful for (1) no rain and (2) no dew. \n\n Our original plan had us going straight north to the coast (through Hamburg) then east to Stralsund, but Covid changed that. When we found out we had the virus we headed straight to the Stralsund area in case we were sick right up until the time of our Bike and Barge trip. Now that we’re able to travel again, and we have a few days to do so, we’re backtracking a bit. We’re heading to Hamburg today and then Wismar tomorrow. We might squeeze in a day trip to Rostock since we’ll be in Wismar for three nights. \n\n having the E9 ticket in August was nice, but it also meant the trains were REALLY full. Today is our first time traveling at full price and it’s kind of nice to be in a train that’s more than half empty. I’ve been kind of considering booking us into the first class compartment if the trains continue to be cattle cars. On the trip from Altefähr to Rostock (where we transfer to Hamburg) we had to produce our tickets. It was our first time using an electronic ticket purchase through OMIO. The lady scanned our QR code, and gave us an approving nod. Easy peasy. When I looked on Airbnb to find us a place in Hamburg, a listing came up for a Hippie Camper with a pic of the cutest little trailer. I had to stay there. Brent agreed to it, because that’s what Brent does. <3\n When we got to the PierDrei hotel they let us check in right away. It’s a really unique and fun place with regular hotel rooms, plus three little trailers in their ‘Camper City’ up one floor from main, on the roof. PierDrei also has a really great restaurant and bar, plus a rooftop garden. Highly recommend!!
| ||
| 2022-09-05: To Wismar | ||
| Since we first got sick we’ve been sleeping a lot. Afternoon naps and long nights. Until Friday, when we both stopped feeling a need to sleep so much. Yesterday we traveled to Hamburg, checked in, went for a walk, had lunch and beer, and then crashed, hard. We laid down around 4pm and didn’t get up again until 6am. I guess we’re still fighting some residual effects. \n Today I contacted our tour company about what to do if we’re still testing positive when the Bike and Barge starts. They indicated that we should remain in quarantine, which is different from what I’ve seen on the government websites, but that plus some gentle questioning from a long lost cousin has me wondering if we’ve been doing the right things. We quarantined for the required five days and then we quarantined for a few bonus days until we were both asymptomatic. But now I’m wondering if we should have quarantined until we both test negative. We tested this afternoon and I was negative (to our surprise, because I have some residual symptoms) and Brent was positive (to our surprise, because he does not. We’ve moved on to Wismar, anyway, and we’ll quarantine Brent until he tests negative, hopefully within a couple of days. \n Properly navigating this whole thing has been very complicated. We can’t just ‘go home and isolate’. When we discovered I was positive we had just arrived at an Airbnb which was only available for three nights. We had to go SOMEWHERE. We chose to go camp in a place that was close to where we would need to be on Sept 10th in case we ended up sick right up until the day. Camping was good for isolation because we were off in our own ‘unit’, as it were, but we still needed to use bathrooms and get groceries. Once we were asymptomatic and had quarantined for the required number of days, we felt we could move around more freely. That seemed to be supported by the German government and the cdc… but… was it really? We don’t know. We’ve done our best and we hope for the best. This shit’s complicated when you’re traveling!\n The whole town of Wismar is a UNESCO site. Here’s what the ‘Most Beautiful Places in Germany’ website says about it:\n Sat on Germany's Baltic Sea coastline, Wismar is a weekender's delight. With its colourful and characterful buildings (evidence of Swedish rule during the 16th and 17th centuries), Gothic architecture and old harbour, the once powerful trading port is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wismar’s picture-perfect looks have long lured filmmakers too: its harbour famously featured in the 1922 Dracula movie Nosferatu.
| ||
| 2022-09-06: Day in Wismar | ||
| Covid or no Covid, i think that early morning walks when we’re traveling may become a favorite activity. We really enjoy having places almost to ourselves and it’s nice to see sights with few or no people in them. \n Besides our early morning walk, today was just an isolation day. I popped out to do some shopping, but otherwise we’re just hanging out. If Brent doesn’t test negative by the 10th we’re not going to be able to go on the Bike and Barge so we’ve discussed contingencies. If that happens we’ll go back to the campground at Altefähr and wait it out.
| ||
| 2022-09-07: Day in Wismar | ||
| Welp, Brent tested positive again today so after our early morning walk it’s just another fun-filled day of hanging out in our Airbnb. Hopefully he tests negative on Friday so we can start our tour on Saturday!\n With all of these early morning walks and not much else, my photos of this trip are looking a little post-apocalyptic: dark, reddish and devoid of people.
| ||
| 2022-09-08: To Stralsund | ||
| We’re heading back to Stralsund today. Hoping Brent will test negative tomorrow. We’ll then have to get an official test done so that we can get on our Bike and Barge tour. The forecast is calling for a lot of rain over the next week or more. Whether we’re Bike and Barge-ing or continuing to isolate, that could make things less pleasant… When we got to Stralsund today, Brent mentioned that he was hungry. I asked him if he wanted to go out, or if he wanted one of our traditional Isolation Sandwiches (Rug bread, salami and cheese). Oh he wanted so much to go out, but not until he tests negative. It’s raining, so even eating in a safer outdoor setting wasn’t feasible. We have only tested me the one time recently so we bought two tests and tested both of us to make sure we were safe to go out for dinner. YAY! We both tested negative! We went for dinner and beers and tomorrow (or, probably Saturday morning) we’ll get our official tests done so that we can go on our Bike and Barge tour.
| ||
| 2022-09-09: Errand day in Stralsund | ||
| Now that we’ve both tested negative we know how the remainder of our trip should go. We are preparing for the Bike and Barge tour - yay! This morning we stopped in at the Covid test kiosk to get the info we needed to get tested appropriately for the tour. Then we went off in search of bicycle helmets. We chose not to bring helmets along because we didn’t want to have to haul them around for the month before the tour. We could buy helmets from the tour company for E40, but for that price we’d rather find and select our own. We headed off to Fahrrad Wollman, the nearest bike shop to us. They had limited selection and quite expensive. One of their helmets looked like a Gilligan hat and if it had fit Brent we certainly would have bought it but alas, it was too big. We decided against getting helmets there and went to Hagebaumarkt - a Hardware store that we had scouted out last time we were in Stralsund. After getting helmets from the hardware store we made our way back to the old town and the Hugendubel store that I’ve been keeping an eye on. It’s a book store that I’ve found to be a good source of cycle tour books and maps in the past. We had decided that, since our days of hauling packs around are now limited, maybe I would buy a few cycle maps there for our tour next year. Sadly they didn’t have what I was looking for - they only had maps for the north of Germany, which I’m not looking for at this time. Oh well. Brent took me for ice cream in the Alte Markt and all is well. The rains predicted for this afternoon didn’t appear so we sat outside and had a couple of beers. We thought we might walk around a little and see if we could find our boat for tomorrow which was supposed to arrive around 1:30. Well, as we sat there around 1:30, the boat pulled in and parked, literally, right in front of our Airbnb. No walking around required. Ha! While we were waiting for the bike shop to open we took a walk through the St Jürgen cemetery. We both really enjoyed it. It had a lot of ‘wild’ and we imagined he people buried there as being, now, up in the tops of the trees in the park.
| ||
| 2022-09-10: Barge: Start from Stralsund | ||
| We went first thing today to get our official rapid tests done. The test kiosk is being run out of a pub here in Stralsund. The tests they’re using seem to be pretty much the same as the tests you can buy yourself here from the Apoteke. We were both relieved to have our official tests come back negative. We spent the afternoon at the Ozeaneum, which was interesting. Then we had a beer at the pier until it was time to board the ship. \n Boarding the ship was easy except for the old guy who wiped out straight into Brent and knocked him over. Thankfully he landed on his backpack and there was no harm done. Apparently we are the only English speakers on board so we have been assigned to Table 18 for meals, sitting with a staff member who speaks English. Let the adventure begin.
| ||
| 2022-09-11: Barge: Stralsund – Lauterbach – Peenemünde | ||
| Since we’re the only English speakers on board we’ve been seated with a couple of the tour staff members. They’re very nice men, but it has also created an uncomfortable segregation. The other guests don’t seem particularly inclined to talk with us and it’s kinda lonely. We’re also on the low end of the age curve so there aren’t many folks that we’d probably have much in common with. There’s one woman, Christine, who is traveling by herself and who we visited with a little in the mandatory orientation last night. Like us, she will be riding a push bike, not an ebike. The majority are riding ebikes, so even though most of them are older than us, they’ll probably still be much faster. Christine is in very good shape and will probably ride a lot faster than us on the push bike. \n Apparently on the last tour they had a whole table of English speakers. Some folks from Britain, the US and Finland. I would love to be able to speak better German so that I could converse with the folks on the tour, but my skill level is really just at ‘get basic needs met’. I can’t hold down a proper conversation. Sigh. Today is the longest and most complicated riding day so we got our own personalized overview in English today. The forecast has been calling for rain all day today for the last week, but that fizzled away into a few showers around 1pm. The showers actually showed up around 11am but didn’t last long. It was a really nice day for riding and Brent and I were really happy to be on some bikes. I’m super relieved that the longer ride (not quite 50km) didn’t trigger any post-Covid hacking, which both of us have been having a bit. Rügen is a very flat and agricultural island. Most of our riding was through fields and forests, punctuated by the occasional really pretty little town. Putbus is a little on the larger side and we thought we might stop there for first beer, but with all of the beer behind us by the time we climbed up to town we decided to go all the way to Lauterbach for first beer. We arrived at the same time as our boat… about 2:30pm. The boat were on has a captain, a manager of hotel operations and a manager of the cycle tour. The cycle tour manager is the fellow who’s table we’re assigned to for meals. He also has an assistant who sits with us. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know them a little and find out how they got involved in running Bike and Barge tours. The manager is a retired police officer from the Netherlands. He REALLY likes people. We’ve pondered how he would have done as a traffic cop. The world can use more traffic cops who really like people, we think. The assistant got into this field later in life and quite accidentally. His wife works on cruise ships and one time she fell ill and couldn’t go to work, so he stepped in in her place, and the rest is history. Fascinating. The crew has a great ‘bucket brigade’ process for moving all of the bicycles on and off of the top deck of the boat. Many hands make light work!
| ||
| 2022-09-12: Barge: Peenemünde – Wolgast | ||
| We woke up this morning in Peenemünde with a Russian submarine right outside our boat. How interesting! I had never heard of Peenemünde before and had no idea that it was where rocket technology originated. Brent knew, though, and had always sort of wanted to go there, and here we are! We spent three hours at the Peenemünde museum before we started our ride for the day. We could have easily spent five hours, or even a full day there to absorb everything. But, as we started pushing 1pm I got antsy and rushed us through the last parts. Maybe we’ll have to go back someday and see the rest of it. \n Riding on Insel Usedom was interesting. It was a relatively short ride today, and largely rural again. We really enjoyed the small harbour across from Karlshagen. \n Our ride ended today at Wolgast, which is a very pretty little place. Brent and I went for a walk around, and it seemed like everywhere I looked was a photo opp. \n Our fellow ship passengers are getting used to us and talking to us a bit more. We frequently pass by each other on the daily rides. At dinner time, a lady named Irmgard came over and introduced herself and we had a small conversation. Hopefully we will have more conversations with her, and the other passengers!
| ||
| 2022-09-13: Barge: Wolgast – Szczecin | ||
| It is kind of a cold and drizzly day today so Brent and I are sitting inside as the boat takes us to Szczecin. Irmgard and her husband, Ulrich, joined us for a nice long chat. \n When we get to Szczecin, there will be a two-hour walking tour in German, which Brent and I are not interested in. Instead, I have researched the ‘Red Route, which is a walking route through the city, and prepared English materials for us so we can make our own tour. The plan for today was that folks would spend the day up on the roof of the boat, including lunch, but the weather was too cold and drizzly, do we spent the day indoors. \n We reached Szczecin around 3:30pm, and the other passengers went on a walking tour while Brent and I made our own tour. We tried to follow the ‘Red Route’ walking tour that I had painstakingly researched this morning, but there’s so much construction in town right now that we couldn’t easily follow the route. Instead we ‘cherry picked’ what we wanted to see and went directly to some places, and followed the ‘Red Route’ when it was convenient. We probably saw about 30% of the total walking tour, but what we saw was great. The city is beautiful and we had some great, dramatic dark skies that threatened to rain on us, but really just enhanced our photos.
| ||
| 2022-09-14: Barge: Szczecin – Mescherin – Schwedt | ||
| Frank and Bob, our swans that we met in Altefähr, keep showing up along our journey to say hi. Don’t try to tell me they’re different swans - this is MY story, and they are Frank and Bob. <3 Today we barge from Szczecin to Mescherin, then bike about 30km to Schwedt. Brent and I are both suffering quite a bit from the saddles on the provided bicycles. We’re going to try lowering the seats a bit to see if that helps. \n I’m curious to know why we’re doing no cycling in Poland. We stayed on the boat from Wolgast (Germany) to Szczecin (Poland) and now we’re staying on the boat from Szczecin to Mescherin - just back over the border into Germany. We’ve heard that Poland has poor cycle infrastructure. Maybe it’s that? Or maybe it’s that the tour would require additional insurance for cycling in another country? Anyway. Just a curiosity. The ship had to provide a list of people who would be disembarking in Szczecin to look around. Since Poland is in Schengen, our guide doesn’t think it’s even legal for them to ask. Shrug. The ride today was nice. Relatively short, rural and uneventful. Moving our seats down helped considerably with the saddle pain. Things aren’t perfect but they’re at least tolerable. We got to Schwedt fairly early, had a look around and had some ice cream before meeting up with the boat. Many of the other passengers are talking with us now - some in English and some in German (limited by my small vocabulary, of course).
| ||
| 2022-09-15: Barge: Schwedt – Hohensaaten – Eberswalde | ||
| We haven’t seen Frank and Bob since we left Poland. I hope they haven’t been detained. ;)\n A couple days ago Brent said that he finally feels completely better from Covid. No more residual fatigue. I’m not so lucky yet. I’m still coughing a bit and still fatigued. I’m sleeping more than normal and still tired. I feel like I could just lay down anytime. Hopefully that clears for me soon. \n Today is another day of sittin’ on the ship in the morning and then riding in the afternoon. We’ve been so fortunate with the weather. Almost no rain to speak of and very pleasant temperatures. High-teens, maybe low 20s for the whole tour so far. We had a nice ride to Eberswalde today, with the highlight being watching our ship go up the Niederfinow Boat Lift. We knew that our ship was due to arrive there at 1pm so we kept our dillying and dallying to a minimum to make sure we got there. Brent thought it was 1:30. Good thing Brent was right because we didn’t get there until we’ll after 1:00. We had to wait a while before we got to see the ship go up but it was worth it. So crazy. We finally saw Frank and Bob again along the ride today. Whew! And we also saw a whole other family of swans. <3\n We had beer in Eberswald and it was shaping up to be a beautiful evening. We had to have the bikes back to the ship for 5pm, though, so of course we did. Only a few minutes after we got back the skies opened up and we were treated to a heavy downpour, which we watched from inside the boat’s lounge (having second beer, of course. The bicycle bucket brigade were not quite so fortunate.
| ||
| 2022-09-16: Barge: Eberswalde – Oranienburg – Berlin | ||
| It’s the last day of our tour today and we’ll be riding into Berlin. The forecast for Berlin is decent for today and then showers every day until we go home. We’ve been sooooo lucky with weather. \n The ride today was very nice. A strong headwind at times, which we’ve had most days. I’ve been so happy to have the gps tracks for each day loaded into Maps.Me on my phone. There have been a few confusing points where I’ve been really grateful to be able to just check the route and know exactly where we are and where we need to be. At one point we ran into a handful of our tour mates. We had a heated discussion about which way to go. Brent and I wanted to follow the route as per the provided map and gps track. Some of the others consulted a woman in town and wanted to follow her advice. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways. We reconvened only about maybe 90 minutes later so both routes worked (although we think our way was superior because our 90 minutes included pizza and beer at the Yacht Harbour). For our days in Berlin I looked up things to do. One of the things I found that I was really interested in seeing was the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Then I saw how far out of town it is and took it off the table. Then I realized that it was right along our cycle route for today and put it back on the table. We weren’t able to spend a lot of time there because we had a fair distance to make on time for Farhhad Curfew, which is 5pm. But we saw some and it was interesting and distressing. Like Memento Park in Budapest, we’re happy that Europe does not try to erase or white wash these things, but rather, memorialize them and hope to learn from them. I think Canada has some catching up to do. So as it turns out, the staff table we’ve been sitting at for our meals is the captain’s table. Tonight is the last night of our tour so it is the captain’s dinner. We are, by default, sitting at the captain’s table. Three other people won a raffle to sit at the captain’s table but we’re there because we’re the loser English speakers that didn’t fit at any other table. So. Yay us!! We had a great dinner with the captain and the two Rainers (the tour guide and his assistant).
| ||
| 2022-09-17: Barge: End of Trip | ||
| Checking off of the boat this morning was easy peasy. We both agree that while it was a fine trip, Bike and Barge isn’t really our bag. We prefer self-supported and can’t wait for our tour next year. One of my best-laid plans fell to pieces today. The Berlin airport is quite a long way out from the city. A long time ago I booked us into an Airbnb in a suburb that is near the airport. Before we left Canada I realized I had forgotten to confirm there were no fur people at the place. Well, turned out there were, so I canceled that place and booked us another Airbnb close to the airport. Because that’s the smart thing to do, right? The subway ride to the airport would only be about ten minutes, and it’s about a 10-minute walk to the local subway station. \n Well, when we started trying to make our way to the Airbnb today, oddly, the options I had before no longer came up. The Mahlow station just wasn’t in play anymore. We actually saw this one other time on this trip - back when we were trying to travel through Stuttgart and suddenly the Stuttgart station wasn’t available. Guido had told us about the station being unavailable due to a construction project. Same thing here. The Mahlow station is under construction so our train no longer runs all the way through - it terminates at Lichtenrade. Using my handy-dandy data plan I found information that indicated there is a service replacement bus (SEV) that goes from Lichtenrade to Mahlow, but we could not find it for love nor money. The Lichtenrade station is also under heavy construction and you are directed out to a bus loop. We scoured the bus loop looking for any indication of where to catch our SEV. None of the posted schedules looked right. I asked a bus driver and he indicated around the corner. We went around the corner and there were actually some little guiding foot prints on the sidewalk indicating the SEV. We followed those around the corner, but no sign or schedule. We noticed a few more foot prints across the street so we went over there, but still, no sign or schedule. I noticed a few people walking off in the general direction and theorized that they were going to the SEV. Brent thought they were just headed off to the apartment buildings over there. We pondered options and decided on walking the 4km to our Airbnb. It was nice enough out and we weren’t in a rush. Repeating it every time we wanted to go somewhere wouldn’t be viable, though, so we really needed to find that SEV. \n The construction also seems to have messed with our trip to the airport, so we need an alternate for that too. \n Our Airbnb host told me where to find the SEV in Mahlow, so we walked over there and rode it to Lichtenrade. That’s how we discovered that it does, in fact, stop on the other side of the station (where I’d seen people walking earlier). Then, we caught the 600 from the same bus stop in Mahlow. It takes us over to Wassmansdorf, where it’s a quick one-stop ride on the subway to the airport. It’s not super duper because the 600 only runs once an hour, but it’ll do, and we have alternatives we can use if necessary. \n\n\n\n\n\n
| ||
| 2022-09-18: Berlin with Dietmar and Brigitte | ||
| We headed into Berlin this morning, excited about seeing Dietmar and Brigitte again. They decided to come in for just a few hours to see us!\n We met at Trämenpalast (Palace of Tears) which was the border processing station for people entering West Berlin from East Berlin at the Friedrichstrasse train station. It was very poignant to learn of the people’s experienced when Berlin (and Germany) were separated. For the first time I heard that it was announced, mere days before, that ‘there was no intention to build a wall’. \n We then walked down Unter den Linden which is a beautiful wide boulevard lined with Linden trees, to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) which was an access point to Berlin long before the wall, but that was also incorporated into the wall. We saw the Reichstag, and Brigitte told us that you have to make a reservation at least two days ahead in order to visit it. We walked past the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, although we didn’t have as much time there as we would have liked. \n We had ice cream and chai at an Indian restaurant, and then walked back toward the Friedrichstrasse station. \n\n We haven’t expected to see Frank and Bob since we left the Bike and Barge, but they popped in to say hi as we were standing by the river saying our farewells to Dietmar and Brigitte. \n Brent and I still had a little ‘going and seeing’ left in us, so after we said goodbye, the two of us moved on to the ‘Die Mauer’ (The Wall) Panorama by Yadegar Asisi. It is an amazing, enormous panoramic mural of Berlin with the wall. I am most definitely a Yadegar Asisi fan now. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to see his other panorama that’s in Berlin, Pergamon, while we’re here. ‘Die Mauer’ also includes a chronological display of photos taken of, and around, the Berlin Wall. \n\n After ‘Die Mauer’, we decided that was enough for the day and started heading back to our Airbnb. But then we stumbled onto TrabiWorld, a museum dedicated to vintage Trabant vehicles, so we had to have a quick look at that too. \n\n We also saw the Memorial to the Murdered Sinti and Roma (gypsies). It is so distressing to learn about the attitudes that people can take towards others who are different. One thing that really stuck with me was a card that talked about the ‘gypsy solution’ and the solution was extermination, but of course, ‘extermination by work’ was the best solution. So… yeah… we’re going to kill them anyway, so let’s work them to death. \n\n I am sad to report that today was the day that I realized that the border between East and West Germany did not bisect Berlin, but, rather, Berlin was an ‘island’ within East Germany that was partly West Germany with one train line out to the rest of West Germany.
| ||
| 2022-09-19: Berlin Museums | ||
| Today we started with coffee at a little shop in Mahlow, then we made our way into Berlin. We visited Topography of Terror, then tried (unsuccessfully) to wait out a thunderstorm in a coffee shop (although drinking coffee and eating a cookie was successful). We then visited the Berlin Story Bunker. \n\n Topography of Terror was really interesting. It has a series of photos and placards that follow a section of preserved Berlin Wall, a few placards around the grounds describing buildings that used to be there, plus a museum building which, to an extent, repeats the material from the outdoor display along the wall. \n\n Although it is very interesting, I was not as happy with the Berlin Story Bunker. It claims to trace 800 years of city (Berlin) history with a reconstruction of Hitler's bunker. It also talks about Hitler from a ‘how could this happen’ perspective. What we found is that it doesn’t really cover much before WWI. In my opinion it is overwhelming and unfocused because, beyond Berlin, Hitler, WWII and the bunker, it also covers subsequent genocides, women’s rights, environmentalism, 1968, the Vietnam War, Angela Merkel, global warming and Covid-19. As interesting as those things are, it makes it the whole long and overwhelming (Brent and I spent 4.5 hours there, and that was rushed). It’s also a little poorly structured/laid out. Since it is in a bunker, it is limited by trying to guide folks through a long series of rooms in a sequential fashion in a building that does not lend itself to that kind of progression. Visitors are often squeezing past each other and confused about which piece of information comes next. There is an audio guide provided, but I gave up on it early because it really just reiterated the info on the placards along the route. I suppose if one wanted to listen and look at the pics without reading the placards it would be awesome but I’m a placard reader (or, at least a placard skimmer by the time I reached room 45 of the museum) so it was annoying and redundant for me. \n\n You’re not allowed to take photos within the bunker, so I have none to share from that part of our day. \n\n By the end of the day I’m completely done. Done with WWII stuff. It is so distressing and depressing. I think we might change the plan for tomorrow to go to the Disgusting Food Museum, the Metropolis Panorama and a map store (always a favorite for me).
| ||
| 2022-09-20: Lighter Mood Day in Berlin | ||
| After all of the heavy WWII museums and memorials the last few days I needed to lighten the mood today. We visited the Purgamon Panorama, then the Disgusting Food Museum, and then made a run up to a map store called Chropp where I bought six new cycle tour maps. \n Purgamon was fantastic, but I do think I liked the Berlin Wall Panorama better. \n\n The Disgusting Food museum was fun. They broke disgust down into seven categories: Food, Disease/Contamination, Body, Mutilation/Deformity, Animal-Reminder, Sexual and Moral. The museum had a clear political agenda - to steer people towards sustainable alternative protein sources (primary bugs) but I’m ok with that. \n\n They had a lot of really gross and weird stuff. Some of it we were allowed to open and smell. A lot of it based on animal cruelty. Some of it we’ve had before and would happily have again: Roquefort cheese, Blutwurst, Haggis, Spam, lobster, durian, huitlacoche, escargot, gummi bears, jello salad, salt licorice, Thrills gum, Twinkies, Pop Tarts. \nSome of it we’ve had, but wouldn’t necessarily go out of our way to have again: Steak tartare, caviar, Vegemite. Disgust is cultural so I guess it’s normal that we have no problem with some of the things. \n\n Of all the things we sniffed, the Hákare (rotten, dried shark meat) that made me gag. At the end of the tour, we got to try some things: bugs, and juice. We each had a grasshopper, and they were really dry and crunchy, and did not have the fishy taste of the crickets we had in Mexico. We also tried the fermented carrot juice and sauerkraut juice, both of which I could have happily done without. \n\n I had found Chroop by searching for a map store in Berlin. We took the subway up there and I was not disappointed. They had the best selection of maps (cycle touring maps, to be specific) maps that I’ve seen since we were in Regensburg in 2015. I bought some maps for our tour next year and one for when we do one in the NE (in the area where Dietmar and Brigitte live).
| ||
| 2022-09-21: Fly Home | ||
| Note to self: when booking multiple reservations/airlines for one trip, leave very generous layovers for connections. Our EasyJet flight was late leaving Berlin which out our WestJet flights in jeopardy, and because they’re on separate reservations, we’d have no recourse if we missed them. \n Spoiler: we made it onto the flight to Toronto. But only by the skin of our teeth. We were close to the front of the aircraft from Berlin so we were more aggressive than usual getting off. Quick through passport control. Badda-bing. Luggage some of the first off the plane. Badda-boom. I was able to check us in for the flight while we waited for the luggage (WestJet’s website was malfunctioning last night). That’s where our good luck got a little strained. We were met at WestJet by a fellow who told us we need to do ArriveCAN. We had thought that was discontinued so while Brent got our luggage tags, I did our ArriveCAN. Off to Departures. Every person in the UK was milling about near departures, but Brent found our way into the line and we spent about ten minutes waiting in line to find out we were accidentally in the Premier lane. Oops. Switch to what looked like the cattle lane. I talked Brent into leaving line to confirm we were now in the right place - we didn’t have time for another mistake. Yep. In the right line. With every other person in the UK (except for those ones in the Premier line, of course). Finally we make it to the front of the line and toss our stuff on. We have 20 minutes until the gate closes. I make it through quickly, followed soon by Brent… and then…. Wah-wah-wah… his bin is pooped out into the ‘inspection’ pile. There was only one lady working on inspecting luggage and Brent’s bag was about 10th in line. I went off to try and figure out where our gate was, and, of course, it’s somewhere off beyond the endless snake of duty free. I head back and Brent’s bag hasn’t moved. We now have 15 minutes til the gate is closed and we lose all hope of making the flight. Brent says ‘well, we’ll just have to talk to WestJet and see what they can do for us’. Suddenly they add two people to inspect baggage and things start moving. Within a few minutes, Brent’s bag is up and I have hope that we might make it. Inspection is quick. We run to the gate. I think I left both of my lungs in the hallway… one in the endless snake of duty free and one a little beyond. We get to the gate and there is still a small line of people waiting to get on. We’ve made it. Unfortunately for the lady right in front of us, she got punted out of line because she hadn’t done her ArriveCAN. I don’t know if they held the plane for her to do it. Probably. \n I swear that airports have become a test of fitness, patience and intelligence, and im sure it won’t be too many more years before I’m unable to pass at least one of those. When we landed in Toronto they announced that people who were in Toronto as their final destination had to stay on the plane and those making connections could deplane. I’ve never heard of that before, but it did add an extra level of cluster to the normal clusteriness of deplaning. Then we had to complete several mazes, do the Hokey Pokey and turn ourselves around, pat our heads while rubbing our stomachs, go back through security and find our gate. Plane was already boarding. My goodness what a day. I’m a little claustrophobic, which is the main reason Brent and I use such a large tent. Anyway, our Airbnb in Berlin was a really cute little cabin-ey thing with the bedroom up in the teeny attic. I was pretty uncomfortable up there but determined to talk myself through. Until I started having asthma-like symptoms. I think there’s something up there… maybe an animal had been up, or maybe there was dust or something. In any case, I ended up doing most of my sleeping for the last four nights on the couch on the main floor. It was short, uncomfortable, and surfaced with leatherette (slippery). They had a couple of blankets in the closet, which I used, but they were kinda short and kept sliding off the leatherette. Sleeping there really pooched my back. Ugh. I’ve never been so excited to get back to Edmonton and sleep in the bed there!! This was my first time doing a major trip with only my phone (iPhone XR) for technology. Frequently used apps on this trip:\n
| ||
