Bavarian Vacation

JULY NEWSLETTER
2004
Hi everyone. It finally feels like summer, a bit too much like summer if you ask me. It’s been in the 80’s which isn’t so bad until you remember there’s no nice, cool, air conditioned building in which you can find refuge. I won’t complain too much because I’ve had a fabulous summer. We haven’t had any visitors this summer so we had to find ways to amuse ourselves…..and we did.

MY MISTER MAKES MASTER
Joe isn’t the type to brag and will never toot his own horn (or saxophone) but I will do it for him. He tested for Master Sergeant in March and just found out that he passed and will pin on his new stripes on August 1st. This may not seem big news to you but it is very important to our future. Joe will be retiring in 2 years and our retirement pay is based on the last three years of service. The higher the rank, the higher the pay, the happier we are. So, Master Sergeant Ott has lots to be proud of!

INDEPENDENCE DAY (sort of)
The fourth of July has always been a fun holiday for most people. It usually includes family or friends, barbeques and of course fireworks. This year was the first time in nineteen years that Joe has not worked on this holiday. We were so excited just at the idea of this and had no idea what to do. Just a reminder that we live in Germany. Independence Day is not so important to the Germans. There are celebrations on the military bases but the crowds are unbelievable and we didn’t feel like the fight. So, a friend had a barbeque for those of us that didn’t have any exciting plans. Joe was one of two men there due to the fact that the others were working. He was the barbeque master and we had a fun time even without the fireworks.

SOUP, SALAD AND COFFEE
I recently went out to lunch with some friends from school. All are American except one. As we were placing our orders, this German friend of mine began to giggle when it was my turn.  I assumed that I was pronouncing something incorrectly so I just joined in with the giggling and asked what it was that I said that was so funny. She said my pronunciations were perfect but what I ordered was funny to her. I wasn’t getting the joke at all. I had ordered a salad, some soup and water. Apparently, Germans don’t consider this a meal and somehow find it funny that we Americans eat this way quite often. She recently went to a party with a theme. When I think of themed parties I think of a luau or Mexican food or even a costume party. The theme of this party was based on a supposedly American idea: Soup, Salad and coffee. Everyone had to bring a dish that fit that theme. They had great fun with this idea.

MOM, LOOK!
Have you ever been to the zoo and looked at the animals, perhaps the chimpanzees, and pointed at them, gawked at them, made noises at them, etc.?  I think everyone has done this sometime in their life. But have you ever wondered what it must be like to that chimp, the one that’s being pointed at, gawked at, had rude noises directed to him? Probably not. Well, I think we have, indirectly.
Joe and I were recently walking along the fussganger in Kaiserslautern . By the way, a fussganger is simply a pedestrian zone where there are no cars. It’s fun to walk, shop and sit outside at the cafes having a drink. I heard a boy say something in broken English that shocked me just a bit. He seemed to be about 10 years old, not a toddler whom you might expect inappropriate behavior from. He pointed at one of us, we’re not quite sure which, he gawked at us and he said, “Mom, look…it’s an American.” How did he know that? Why was it such a big deal to him? What makes us so spectacular to look at? We get what we call the “Deutcher Stare” aka “German Stare”, quite often but this crossed the line. I don’t like to be pointed at, gawked at, nor have rude comments directed at me.

 
BMDCVZ
B is for Bavaria
MD is for Munich/Dachau
C is for Castles
V is for Venice
Z is for Zugspitz

This year we decided to stay in Germany for our vacation. We spent most of our time in Bavaria and it has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. This was a vacation of contrasts. Read on and you’ll understand what I mean.
On our first day we arrived at our hotel at about 1:30pm. We checked, breathed in the clean air and took in the breath taking view of the Bavarian mountains, including the Zugspitz, and headed straight for the Linderhof Castle 30 minutes later. King Lugwig II had this castle (among others) built and it is the only one that was completed……after 9 years of construction! We went into the grotto where Wagner’s Tannhauser played-this was an indulgence on Ludwig’s fantasies about the music of Wagner. One thing that I thought was funny was how to tell if the king was in his castle. He loved peacocks and swans and they were placed all over the castle. If you wanted to know if the king was in the castle you just had to look for two peacocks outside the entrance. If they were out, he was in. If not, he wasn’t. No flags for this king!
          We still had some time so we stopped into a town called Ettal. This town is known for the Kloster, or seminary. We went into the church and were lucky enough to see the beginning of the mass. There were about 25 monks and they were singing beautifully. We both felt a spiritual vibe while in there. These monks also make their own beer called Klosterbier. We figure that’s why monks always have such a nice, peaceful look on their faces. In fact, have you ever seen a skinny monk? Probably not, because they all make their own beer. This tradition started many years ago but not for the reason you might think. It was necessary because it had all the nutrients of brown bread but kept much longer without going bad and so the people almost always had beer with their meals.

MUNICH
Our second day was spent on a tour of Munich and Dachau. As we drove through this area, Joe called it the land of the Porsche. That’s his favorite car. However, we passed a Mercedes corporate headquarters and every car they make was on display and every car was silver. To me, it looked like a giant matchbox car display. We only had a short time in Munich so we made sure we saw the highlights. We first saw the glockenspiel which has a mechanical marionette type of performance. The clock rang at 11am and then the show started. The story is of how the people were dying from the plague and they were fighting amongst each other. Finally the plague was gone and the people dance in the streets. This is an abbreviated version of the story and may not be exact. I didn’t get to hear it very clearlyJ We had lunch in the famous Hofbrauhaus. As we sat down the waiter very clearly announced to the others that we were Americans. I don’t know why. Perhaps, so we’d get menus in English. Not so. Once again, we stand out. Anyway, the food was good but typical German and the beer was excellent. It was rather quiet at the time which surprised us until we realized that we were in the restaurant and not the beer garden which is where Oktoberfest is held. Oh well, maybe next time. 
We went on to Dachau. I never really realized that Dachau is a city. I always associated it with Hitler and the concentration camps. It is actually a lovely city and the inhabitants would like you to know it. Unfortunately, I am among the majority in my ignorance of this city. All I know of Dachau is the horrific events that took place. This was a rather sobering part of the day. I took pictures but somehow found it difficult. It didn’t seem right to be photographing evidence of such horrors. I did take some pictures but Joe and I aren’t in any of them. We had an excellent tour guide who had some insight that others didn’t. He had a friend who was a prisoner in Dachau. In fact, he was a prisoner in two camps and was freed while in a third. He has since passed away but a book was written about him. His name was Marvin and he was Czech. The book is called, “The Last Survivor”. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his last name. I’m going to search online for it. Anyway, Marvin would come to Dachau and interrupt tour groups when he heard the guides sharing information. It seems that the Germans have tried to somehow sanitize the whole thing and have even left out information on the signs. Just recently they have admitted and put on the signs that there were gas chambers but they deny that they were used for mass killings. Marvin would tell you otherwise. He also knew of places where people were told to stand up against a concrete wall where they were shot in the head. Again, the Germans have covered this up by growing vines on the wall, but if you know they are there, you could see the bullet holes in the wall. It was difficult to imagine. Just next to the wall was a ditch. It looked like any other grass covered ditch until you found out it was used as a blood drainage ditch. We wondered why they drained the bodies. They did this because they piled all the dead bodies into a truck and transported them somewhere else. They did not want people to know what they were doing so they drained the bodies of blood so that it would not flow out of the truck when they were driving on the highway!  Across from the ditch were some trees that were used for hanging. The prisoners’ hands were bound behind their backs and they were hung by their wrists. If they made any sort of noise, they were tortured even more. The guards would swing them like a pendulum until their arms were torn out of their sockets.
Other things that were cleverly covered were the electric guard fences. This has been landscaped to look like what you’d see growing wild in the forest. There were 30 barracks at the time of this horror but only 2 are left standing. We walked through the gas chamber. I asked Joe how this made him feel and he said guilty. “Here I am touring and looking at something these people died in,” was his response. We also went into a cell for “special prisoners”. These prisoners were supposedly treated better than the others. Many were doctors and clergymen. This also made us feel weird about walking through the cells. We felt the spirit of what those prisoners must have felt. We saw standing cells. These cells look like upright coffins and the prisoners were bound at the legs so they could not bend their knees. They were unable to move at all. They were kept in these cells for days, weeks and sometimes months.  The gas chambers and the ovens were the most difficult to look at. If you saw the picture of the oven now, you might think it was a brick oven for cooking bread or pizza. But the realty is much worse. Many times, the prisoners were hung just to make sure they were dead. The hooks are gone or rather removed by the Germans but the pulley system is still there. We could see how they were hung, killed and lowered to the ground and unto the ovens. Two to three people could fit into the ovens. The gas chambers looked like a large showering area and this is what the prisoners were told it was. But once the gas poured through the “shower heads” they knew the truth. It was eerie to stand in such a horrific place and we have no intention of going back but think it was important to see.
We ended that day with a drink on our balcony overlooking the mountains. We needed to wind down from our hectic and emotional day. Following are some quotes from the one and only, JoeJ
“If I were king for a day, this is where I’d be.”
“Look at this long and hard. You’ll never see it again when we get back to the states.”
“First you see valleys of green and above you see that! You’d have to be dead not to appreciate this beauty.”

Neuschwanstein Castle
 The Neuschwantein Castle is another of King Ludwig’s castles. This castle is the most famous in Germany and is used in many advertisements. It is known as the fairy tale castle and was Disney’s inspiration for the castle in Disneyworld. Three castles were built and a 4th was planned but never built. This one was incomplete and had only three floors completed. The Throne Room was decorated in the Byzantine style including crown shaped candelabras and chandeliers, all solid brass with glass cutouts. The throne room was missing one thing…… the throne! It never got done. When you looked out the windows you saw incredible view of the Alps, waterfalls and snow.
This took the better part of the day but we still had some time to explore Garmisch, Germany. We did some window shopping when we passed a beer garden and an oompah band. What more does one need?
We also found the Olympic Ice Stadium where Joe’s hockey team had a tournament last year. This was the year that he broke his wrist and was unable to play. We found a professional hockey team from the Czech Republic practicing. This was thrilling for Joe. One of the coaches kept looking at Joe. We think he thought Joe was from another team and was checking out their style of play.  As we entered the arena I noticed a remarkable change in Joe. His entire body took on a more upright position. He heard that first slap shot and it was like he was home.  As Joe says, “I coulda been a contenda!”

The Zugspitz
 The Zugspitz Mountain is the highest point in Germany. We continue with Joe’s therapy on his fear of heights. Why not go to the highest point in Germany and the success of his therapy? Hee, hee. Well, he did quite well. I think the beauty overtook his fear. We drove to a lake called the Eibsee. All the water around here is a bluish-green color due to the high concentration of minerals especially calcium and the fact that it is glacier water. We took a train through the mountain. I do not mean around the mountain. I literally mean through the mountain. This took about 45 minutes and was mostly dark except for the entrance and exit from the mountain. We were let off several feet below the top of the mountain. As everyone was deboarding the train, they were putting on sweatshirts and jackets, preparing for the 32 degree temperature. As we walked outside, we were greeting with an intense orange sun, a perfect blue sky and whiter than white snow. How odd to see snow in the middle of July! Although this is a ski area and the rail runs through it, it remains relatively untouched. We sat on a rock next to a mountain chapel and just took it all in….the absolute beauty of nature. I could have sat their all day. It was a perfect meditation spot. We finally resolved ourselves to the fact that sooner or later we would have to move on. We took a 4 minute glacier rail car to the top of the Zugspitz. There were several terraces for taking pictures from different vantage points. Thank goodness for digital cameras! We noticed quite a difference in the temperature. It was about 25 degrees at the top and quite gusty. We enjoyed a nice bratwurst and pretzel. We decided to be monk like and enjoyed a bit of the klosterbier, made by those wonderful, happy and peaceful monks. While we were eating, we were able to see four countries: Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. But the clouds began to roll in and suddenly some of the mountains and other countries seemed to disappear before our eyes.
          It was time to go back down to the Eibsee via a 10 minute cable car ride. As we looked down we saw the real athletes, hiking up! We thought about doing this ourselves but when we found out it takes 6-8 hours we thought better of it. We were definitely not prepared for that and didn’t have Zoe, the dog, to help pull us upJ

Venice

          As I mentioned before, this has been a vacation of contrasts. We saw the beauty of the mountains and the horrors of a concentration camp. We saw the simplicity of the monks and the decadence of King Ludwig II. We saw the greenery of the valleys below the mountains and the snow atop them. On this day, we took a day bus tour to Venice, Italy. Venice is only 5 hours from Bavaria so we decided to take advantage of the tour. This was a marked contrast, simply because we traveled to another country where the temperatures were about 85 with no relief in sight. It was difficult deciding what to wear because it was cool in Bavaria but would be hot in Venice. I decided on a pair of long jean, a tank top and a sweater. I will explain the importance of my ensemble later.
          Venice has no cars in its city. You can only get to it by boat. We took a taxi, a water taxi to the city. The waters were incredibly busy, even scary with all the crazy Italian drivers. Once we were dropped off at Saint Mark’s Square we were on our own. Our guide offered to organize a gondola ride through the canals. Although you may have a romantic notion about this, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Venice is not a clean city and the odors in the narrow canals can be stifling. We chose not to do it for this reason as well as the high cost and our limited time. Joe has been here so knew certain spots to show me. We went into St. Marks Basilica. Here is where my outfit became important. There was a specific dress code for entering this sacred building. No shorts (men or women), and no tank tops. Several people had to step aside and were given shawls to cover themselves. Here’s another one of those contrasts. Italy is know for its style and the women are dressed beautifully, if not scantily. They are quite open and comfortable with their sexuality but don’t be a wearin’ that outfit in the churches! They won’t let you in. The Basilica is in the Byzantine style with mosaic floors as well as the mosaic artwork in the atriums. The ceilings are pure gold. It looks completely different from any other cathedral we have seen and we’ve seen plenty.
 Time did not allow for lots of museum tours so we did lots of walking and looking. We saw the Bridge of Sighs which connects Doges Palace with the prison. Apparently Doge’s Palace takes about a half day to tour….maybe next time….when you come visitJ We walked/ran along the Grand Canal. No strolling allowed at this time. We also saw Rialto Square, famous for its market, vendors and shopping. The market had beautiful fruits and veggies and not so beautiful meats….raw….with heads and fins and feathers. EEEKKK!!! The outdoor vendors are jammed between the narrow streets. You have no choice but to look. We were literally surrounded by Murano glass, Venetian masks, leather and any other trinkets a tourist might buy. Joe has been here a few times and bought a murano vase for me so this time we bough a mask. I’m not a collector and wasn’t interest in the real thing but did want something unique to Venice. I found a neat one along with a red leather shoulder bag. Joe goes to the same vendor every time he tours to Venice so he tried to talk the price down but was pretty much ignored. Supposedly, Italians find this insulting.
          I think I can vaguely relate to mice and rats. Venice is a city of narrow canals and even narrower streets. There are plenty of signs to the city’s highlights, museums and churches but it can still be confusing, especially if you miss a sign. Even though Joe has been here, he still gets lost. We would be crossing a canal on a bridge, walk down a narrow street… By the way, let me explain narrow. Generally speaking your height is the same as your wingspan (your arms stretched out shoulder height. I am 5’2” and could spread out my arms while standing in the middle of the street and nearly touch the building on either side. The Rialto market was twice this width which is still quite narrow. Now back to the rats and mice. We’d take that street which only led on way. So like a rat or mouse in a maze, we followed it around several bends only to find a dead end. We’d turn around thinking we could retrace our steps only to wonder, “Did we turn here or did we go further?” We’d just chuckle when we saw others doing the same thing. After a lime and lemon gelato (Italian ice) we re-boarded the water taxi and the 5 hour bus ride back to Bavaria.