Nach Freiburg!

We’re on the train from München to Freiburg, via a transfer in Manheim. We’ll have 7 minutes- not much time, but it should be enough. We’re seeing the first sun we’ve had since we landed in Franfurt- bright, early morning (it’s not quite ten, so less than 90 minutes since sunrise) light through the tearing clouds. We even had bit of blue sky earlier.

And now we’re rolling through the German countryside, west toward Karlsruhe (all trains here are indicated by their end destination) with a changeover in Manheim north and getting off in Freiburg.

We’re not sitting together- German trains salt in reservations with the non-reseverd seats, so you try to find a non-reserved one or risk getting booted. I got booted, then got booted again, and now I’m a car down from Amy, but at least I have a table to write at. Barring frustrations with seats, I still love the German trains. Fast, clean, efficient, on time, quiet, fast. Everything you’d expect in a former fascist country, really. Except Russia. I hear Russian trains aren’t so hot. But Italian trains are famous, and even the US is moving slowly but steadily toward a proper train service, even as we’re moving slowly and steadily toward fascism. Lovely thought, really.

And here’s Hauptbanhof Ulm (central station, Ulm).

Yesterday, we hit the Deutsches Museum. This thing is stupendously huge. It had sections in aeronautics (several historical planes, including the first solar plane to fly across the Alps, the first plane to fly the English Channel, etc, and dozens more starting with balloons all the way through modern jet fighters and new experimental aircrafts), manufacturing, machinery (including dozens of enormous steam engines), an entire weather station, a mining section including four stories worth of underground dioramas (no exaggeration!), a historical instrument display (I got pictures of a 16^th century drum), a boat display including a cut open sailship, steam ship and the U-1 submarine (first Germany military submarine), about a dozen smaller boats (from curraghs to “small” fishing vessels of 7 meters or so) and several life-size dioramas, a section on nanotechnology, a section on textiles, a section on high voltage electricity and nuclear power, a section on oil and natural gas, a section on historical and modern casting/foundry work, a section on printing, a section on glass blowing, a section on ceramics spanning from cave paintings to modern industrial uses, a section on turbines, a section on space travel (including the first liquid-fuel rocket that flew successfully), a section on 1950’s household technology (much more old-school than the 1950’s we think of in the US- this is pre-jet age. Gas-powered toasters, bikes with pushrod breaks, things that we’d think of as closer to the 30’s and 40’s), a section on the Deutschen Zukunftspreis (German Futureprize, a program to spur cutting-edge technology) and much, much more. Each and every one of these sections would work just fine as its own museum. Some, like the nanotechnology section might be a fairly small museum, or a section of a larger one, but others, like the aerospace exhibit or the mining section were so big I would have considered them large museums in their own rite.

So how did we see all that in one day? Easy: we got lost. We walked in, hit the boats, and promptly lose track of each other. No matter, that happens all the time in museums, right? We’ll just keep looking… and found each other again an hour later. But now, we’d seen different things, so we split up and agreed in about 20 minutes at the café. Not the front door one, the one in the back. Amy didn’t have a watch, so I suggested I could come find her in the musical instruments if she wasn’t at the café.

Well, twenty minutes later, I went to find the musical instruments, which took me 15 minutes, but she wasn’t there, so I went to the café. She wasn’t there. Then I started trying to find her, and discovered just how huge this place was.

I walked at a good clip for two hours, and kept thinking I had seen the whole thing when I discovered a another huge section. The mining section alone took me about 20 minutes just to walk through. Not stroll- walk, quickly.

In the meantime, Amy was at the café, waiting for me for an hour before she gave up, tried to find me, by which time the café closed so she left to get food and came back. We finally found each other in the musical instruments, sweaty, tired, footsore and (in my case) starving. It was 4:00 pm by now, and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and been at a quick walk for two hours. I estimate I walked over four miles in that museum, but I got to see a huge number of things, even if I didn’t get to examine them. It’s weird how much knowledge you can absorb just walking past something and glancing at it.

Anyhow, we finally found each other, having both spent more time looking for each other than at the things in the museum, and having spent all day in there- which we hadn’t planned on. But now we know that we’ll definitely need to go back and check this place out again. Truly massive, loads of brilliant stuff (including originals and The Real Thing quite often), and all very well signed out- far more in-depth information than we’re used to, and dozens of docents that wandered around to expound on anything you’re interested in.

Then dinner, ein bier (a big one, so 0.51 liters), then noch ein bier (a small one, or 0.31 liters, part of which got spilled), then Weinachtsmarkt for Christmas shopping. I could go on about the Weinachtsmarkt, but I think you’re probably sick of this, and I’m certainly not saying what we got for people for Christmas- other than that there’s some quintessentially German stuff there, things I remember from my childhood. Then Amy found an H&M and dodged in to get some basics, while I enjoyed a Hirtenpunsch (shepherd’s punch, or mulled white wine). She came back and pointed out that they had men’s basics there- unlike the H&M Mann (H&M for men) I checked out earlier this week, which was tiny and seemed to cater to the higher end of H&M fashion, this was the general store where they had cheap t-shirts. Jackpot! I now have enough clean clothes to take me almost all the way home! A bit of handwashing, and I won’t even stink on the plane- Amy will be thrilled!

And now we’re climbing through the mountains- the Schwarzwald (Blackforest) maybe? I don’t even know. Forests (new growth- German forests are all managed crop forests), charming Dörfer (villages), with their medieval churches and Ratshäuser (city halls, often the biggest, oldest building next to the churches), Gasthäuser (pubs) and of course residential areas.

As the birthplace of Protestantism (Martin Luther and those theses he nailed to the church door), even the smallest German villages have at least two churches- on Catholisch (Catholic) and one Evangelisch (Protestant or Lutheran, not Evangelical).

Once we hit Freiburg, we’ll need to meet my uncle to get the house key from him, and then we’ll have a few hours to settle in and get ready before meeting him and his family for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is the big one here, and most things will close around noon. Christmas Day (or der Erste Weinachtstag- the first day of Christmas) is for visiting extended, der Zweite Weinachtstag (2^nd day of Christmas) is for extended family, neighbors and close friends, and then you sort of move out from there, so being invited to Abendessen (dinner) on Heilige Abend (Christmas Eve) is about like being invited to Christmas morning breakfast.

Christmas day we’ll have to ourselves in Freiburg, and hopefully we’ll at least get a chance to see a few things. The Münster (cathedral) will certainly be open, but probably hopping busy with enthusiastic Catholics. Nothing against enthusiastic Catholics, but I don’t think they want enthusiastic tourists in pushing through their masses to climb the tower than vice versa. But it should be a sunny day, so that’ll be nice.

Update: It’s now the next morning. Christmas Eve (and the whole German Christmas shebang is behind us, as well as Christmas morning breakfast, again with my uncle’s family. We weren’t able to get to internet yesterday, so this is a bit late. Expect very sporadic updates through the rest of the trip- the closest internet is in a Starbucks six blocks from where we’re staying. That might change on the 27^th, but will be like this today and the 26^th, at least.