Month: December 2008

I’m posting this long after our trip was over, but backdating it to Dec 31st so it fits in the timeline of the whole thing.

So, what are some useful lessons from our trip?

Despite our griping about the cold (30 deg F), it turns out that we were actually lucky with the weather. We had sunny skies every day, and central Europe is capable of far colder weather in the winter. Two weeks after our trip our German family was telling us of 10 degree weather! I can’t imagine how miserable it would be to tramp around a city in that. So that’s one knock against going in the winter. A related caveat is that, even at mid-day, the sun is quite low and doesn’t really clear the rooftops in the city. It’s weird to perpetually have that “it’s morning” feeling because the sun is low, anticpating midday sun, and then you discover that it’s 3 pm and it’s starting to get darker. No real sun. Europe is much farther north than the US, in general, and that makes for a low sun — and very short days in the winter. So, just sayin’, avoid winter. Duh, right?

The RER system (in Paris) is really a bunch of suburban transit lines that happen to have a few convenient stops in the central city. If you take one of these instead of the Metro (regular subway), be very careful: – signage is poor and they will quickly spin you around and you’ll find you’re on the wrong train – ticket kiosks may not work, which is extra evil when you’re trying to make it to the airport for your flight – some express trains (e.g. to airport) may not actually go particularly fast (i.e. brisk walk), thanks! – budget an hour from hotel to airport via RER train

We have got to find a way to invest in cutting the lines at the museums — they were typically 45 minutes and that was in winter! I can’t imagine what they’re like in warm weather when surely tons more people are there.

We really should know a little bit of French for next time. This was just a little “starter” visit; a future trip with more time spent in the city will call for more time invested in preparation.

Quotes from the trip:

Chris to Sharon: “Honey, your gaydar doesn’t work in this country.”

In Renate’s kitchen, fixing ourselves something to eat:

Chris: “Where’s the meat?”

Sharon: “Everywhere.”

After Sharon takes the first shower in a hotel room:

Chris: “How was that?”

Sharon: “It was fine, normal. Well, the new normal.”

Had a quick breakfast at the little hotel before checking out and heading straight to the airport — the shot here shows us both crammed into the comically tiny hotel elevator.

For the third time in as many days, we got screwed by the RER train system as first the automated kiosks refused to sell us a ticket, and then the “express” train inexplicably took the surprisingly long ride out to Charles De Gaulle airport at a snail’s pace. We got to the luggage check-in just barely in time to get our suitcases on the plane, and got through security (also inexplicably slow) just barely in time to get ourselves on the plane. But we made it!

Sharon was so exhausted by the experience that she was giddy with emotion. This may explain why she cried all the way through the Ricky Gervais rom com “Ghost Town”. Chris was disappointed that the lack of seatback in-demand video meant no more movie gorging, but he had reading to catch up on anyway. In addition to, of course, monitoring our progress the whole way back on the GPS receiver. Brighton! Quebecois tundra! Scranton!

And, back in Atlanta, our luggage made it too. Success! Home! Kitty hugs! Sleep.

We dragged ourselves out of bed early to get to the only thing open that early and without lines: Pere Lachaise cemetery. We grabbed a baguette with ham, butter and gruyere, some coffee and got on the Metro. Pere Lachaise is everything you’ve heard. So many periods of architecture are represented by the graves and so many periods of art represented by the people buried there. We saw the requisites (Jim Morrison and its accompanying whiskey bottles and Oscar Wilde’s lipstick covered monument) and many more. Eating a baguette while walking through the cemetery at dawn is one of Sharon’s favorite memories of Paris.

Once again the tourist-unfriendly RER train system managed to get Chris twisted up and we found ourselves on a train to the suburbs. Express, no stops. Hello Juvisy! Fortunately we managed to navigate ourselves back without getting charged for the trip(s) but we had lost a valuable hour in the process.

We ended up at our destination: Le Musée des Égouts de Paris – The Paris sewer museum. This museum shows how the Paris sewer and water systems work. Ages ago they used the Seine to both dump their poop into and drink water from. Engineers developed sewer and water systems that the Parisians are very proud of. Proud enough to make a museum about it — a stinky, dark, damp museum. With a rat diorama and rat-related gifts at the gift shop. About a quarter of the way through Sharon said, “I forget, why did we want to come here?”.

We then went on another pointless expedition to find the Musee Dupuytren, a medical museum that is part of the University of Paris medical school. Closed for the winter school holidays! Steeeerike 3 in our medical itinerary! So we walked through the Latin Quarter (through the Sorbonne, past the Pantheon) and down Rue Mouffetard where Sharon found a toy store with her new favorite cartoon character, Barbapapa, a strange morphing blobby thing.

Took the metro to the Louvre station, which features a few replicas of Actual Art on display in the station — alas this would be our only encounter with the Louvre for this trip. We did walk through the gargantuan plaza with the iconic I. M. Pei glass pyramids. We headed through the Tuileries gardens (dead for the winter) to the Musee l’Orangerie which has the giant Monet waterlily paintings but which we abandoned as soon as we saw the line. We continued across the Place de la Concorde, which Chris is familiar with because of the views from TV when the Tour de France ends there every July. There was a huge ferris wheel and carousel set up to entertain the masses.

Then we nabbed a bus for the trip up the loooong Champs Elysees, ending up at the Arc de Triomphe. Sharon’s feet hurt too badly, but Chris climbed the stairs to see the view from the top, and wished he had more time to check out the awesome art exhibits that they had on display in the indoor galleries up there.

We went back to the Oberkampf area near our hotel for our final dinner in Paris. We were a little early (dinner wasn’t served until 7pm) so we had a bottle of wine and waited. For dinner we had an amazing steak au poivre and colossal prawns with butter sauce. We returned to the hotel and collapsed into bed.

We took the subway out north to the 18th arrondissement for a morning meetup with “Paris Walks“, a guided walk through streets of the Montmartre section of upper Paris. We saw the streets where Van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, etc. all had studios and the absinthe cabaret bars where they hung out and mingled (including the Lapin Agile). The Moulin Rouge and other cabaret bars were all in this area. The tour ended at the brilliant white Sacre Coeur — it stays naturally clean by virtue of the travertine stone from which it was constructed in the 1880’s. After enjoying the panoramic view of the city from the hilltop (and the living statues on their pediments), we headed back down to the Abbesses metro station and had lunch at a tiny Tibetan restaurant on Rue de Abbesses.

We headed up from the subway to the Catacombes and immediately saw a HUGE line of people. Not only did we not get there in time to stand in this line before it closed, but the line was cut off two people ahead of us. Booooooo! We were really looking forward to this (having had a memorable visit to the Sedlec Ossuary outside Prague about a decade ago) so it was quite disappointing. Strike 1 on our medical oddities itinerary. Oh well, next time; move on!

We then headed back down to the subway and on to the cathedrals Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle, located on a little island (Ile-de-la-Cite) in the middle of the Seine, where Paris originated back with the Romans. Spectacular and outrageous, Notre Dame is just as done up and redonkulous as you’ve heard. Mmmmmm, buttressy. Saint Chappelle is a little more subtle with only several thousand stained glass windows. We got there just before the sun set and had beautiful views of the mostly blue glass.

Chris insisted that we try to get to the Musee d’Orsay but Sharon resisted, saying an entire museum would take too much time out of their schedule and needed to be saved for another trip back. (The Louvre was out of the question for this trip.) Even though it was almost time for the d’Orsay to close we got there at 5:40, the guard shrugged and let us in for free. The museum is in a cavernous old train station, beautifully converted to house the national art treasures of France. Amazingly, we saw, in those 20 minutes (and the next 20 that it took to get all the other people to leave) a lot of great art. Manets, Monets, Degas, Millet, etc. We witnessed a near riot as the museum staff attempted to close the Picasso exhibit with a line of people waiting to get in.

We left the Orsay to go scout, only a few blocks away, the famed taxidermy and funky stuff store Deyrolle. It turned out to be closed for winter inventory. Again, Boooooooo! Strike 2.

For dinner we had the typical French fare: Steak frites! The other dish is a chopped beef burger topped with a fried egg, Simpsons’ style.

On to the Eiffel Tower. Lit up this evening in blue lights with huge gold stars on the sides, the tower really is an amazing architectural and engineering marvel. We should have just appreciated it from the ground. Many lines and 2 hours in the literally freezing weather with a couple thousand of our most annoying friends, and we were rewarded with a view at the top that left us … cold. Here’s a picture from under the tower. Finally got back to the hotel at 11pm or so, after some confusion on the RER transit line.

Herma and Guenther met us at the hotel and saw us to the train station. We took local trains from Annweiler to Landau and then Karlsruhe, where we grabbed lunch and boarded the French TGV bullet train that would take us to Paris. Most of the train ride was run at around 160 KPH (100 MPH) as we traveled over the rails of Germany and eastern France, but as we approached the Paris region we apparently reached higher quality rails because we sped up to a cruising speed of 310 KPH (193 MPH) and at one point hit 320 KPH (200 MPH) — Chris obviously stayed busy checking his GPS receiver. We arrived in late afternoon in Paris at the Gare d’Est train station, splurged on a taxi and checked into our tiny room (with shower!) at the modest Hotel Beaumarchais in the Bastille neighborhood in the 11th arrondissement of eastern Paris.

After a rest, we headed out to discover our neighborhood, had dinner a busy little cafe near the Place de la Republique, and then went back to the hotel to plan our attack of the city for the next two days.

Time to leave Mainz behind and most of the German family with it! Chris and Sharon hopped into cousin Teresa’s tiny Citroen hatchback to be driven by Peter to Heidelberg for a quick tour. Peter is cousin Susann’s husband and owns Heidel-bike, a local bike shop. He took us for a quick visit of their home and on a short walk through the city center.

After crossing the old bridge across the Neckar river we saw the famous brass monkey sculpture. There was also another Christkindlmarkt in the town center that had a skating rink set up in it. More gluhwein! The Heidelberger Schloss ruin was, well, ruined but it still looked good from where we were.

We also popped into the ancient Church of the Holy Spirit and saw these bizarrely wonderful candelabras.

Then it was onward to the real destination of the day, Annweiler am Trifels, basically the family hometown and where Chris lived in as a teenager. He spent his freshman year of high school living with his grandmother and cousin Stefan and going to the local (German) high school with Stefan, inaugurating the extended family’s own little internal exchange program that continued for years as cousins went back and forth across the Atlantic spending a year of high school overseas (Americans going to Germany, Germans going to America). Chris’s mother and her family put their roots down here in 1950 and it’s the family base.

After checking in at the small hotel in Annweiler, we met up with old family friends Herma and Guenther at their home in the town center. The house has been in Herma’s family for a century and is 400-something years old; Herma ran the family photo shop (film only) until two years ago. They spent many years restoring the building and are now retired and enjoying the fruits of their labor. After a nice meal, we head out for a long walk to see a few things in town while it was still light, led by the hard charging Guenther, a former policeman. We hiked up to the Waldfriedenstrasse house that Chris lived in (now no longer in the family since grandmother Omi/Ilse has moved to Mainz), and then over to the high school at the top of another hill. The castle Trifels sits high up and can be seen from all over the town. Then back to Herma and Guenther’s for coffee and homemade cinnamon waffle cookies. Peter departed for his return drive to Heidelberg (thanks Peter for shepherding us around!) and we headed out for last short walk around the town, passing by the church that Monika and Oliver were married in. We finally got back to the hotel for a long night’s rest and starting our serious planning of the last segment of this trip — Paris!

The last of the extended family arrived at midday and we all settled in for another gigantic meal of bouillabaisse, roasted goose and fist-sized potato dumplings.

In the evening most of us (the older generation and discretely injured excepted) headed over to Andreas’s and Marianne’s for a party they were throwing. More drinking fun, but this time with pre-teen nieces running around offering beer — we had no idea where they got the idea, but we weren’t going to stop them. (Later we figured out that they were trying to get the men drunk so that we would throw them back and forth in a game they call “dwarf tossing”, no joke.) About half of the party (generally the female and/or young half) disappeared down to the basement, where it turned out that an Abba-fueled karaoke inferno was raging … occasionally the videogame afficionados were able to take over. By the end, nobody could resist the lure of the open mic …

Tomorrow: the third and final phase of the trip — Paris! Starting with the Heidelberg and Annweiler prologue …

Before the days family activities, Sharon and Chris got a chance to head into Mainz and wander the city center a little bit. With Chris’s dad Oliver in tow, we stopped by the freaky sculpture fountain in the city center and walked across the 50 deg North latitude line which happens to pass through the heart of Mainz (Europe is much farther north than the US). We circled the ancient Mainzer Dom (“Dom” = cathedral, started construction in year 975) which by luck started chiming its noon bells while we there. After a brief stop inside of the cathedral we moved on to the Saint Stephan church nearby. This church is also over a thousand years old but partially destroyed by bombing during World War II. During post war construction Marc Chagall was commissioned to do the main windows. Stunning.

Here’s a shot of the supposedly joyous Fastnachtsbrunnen fountain in the center of town. Fastnacht is a big holiday in Germany — it’s the counterpart to Mardi Gras, with “Crazy Days” occuring in the days just before Lent starts. Chris remembers attending the “Rosenmontag” parades in Mainz as a child, with candy being thrown from windows, wild costumes, and probably lots of drinking. This fountain though … looks eerily like Holocaust memorials we’ve seen.

We returned to Hechtsheim and Morschgasse (Winny and Marianne’s house) to meet up with family. Many of us then went to an afternoon Christmas Eve mass at the nearby church (more modest, only 200 years old), which was already standing room only when we arrived. Germany is a very Christian, very Catholic country — Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the current pope himself all hail from here.

Later … meals, presents, drinking! In the German tradition, gifts are opened on Christmas Eve, not the next morning. Each of us had been assigned a “secret Santa” and gave our gifts to each other. Complete chaos and joy reigned! Then we went back over to Heuerstrasse (Gisela and Helmut’s house) for dinner, noisily marching the five blocks carrying little candle-lit torches. All 25 of us fit into the beautifully decorated dining room for a huge meal of roast beef, turkey with tuna sauce and capers, avocados stuffed with shrimp, and much more. Here Cody and Jen demonstrate the proper way to drink plum schnapps. We have never seen so many different kinds of Christmas cookies.

At the stroke of midnight, everyone toasted Sharon’s birthday. More drinking! So many different kinds of alcohol!

We were headed to Mainz where all the Campbell/Conrad families were gathering. We drove with aunt Renate from Munich to Mainz on the A9 and A3 autobahns, passing through Nurnberg and Wurzberg. Chris got to drive Renate’s small Mercedes C180 hatchback once we cleared well out of Munich, but was limited to 160 KPH (100 MPH) because of the winter tires she had on the car (or so she claimed). Even at 100 MPH, faster cars were blowing by us — literally, our car would rock when passed by the fastest. The road was surprisingly free of the anticipated holiday traffic so it made for good driving.

We arrived in outside Mainz (Hechtsheim) to join up with the extended family (20 people, to expand to 30 by Christmas day) at the home of Aunt Gisela and Uncle Helmut, and also the new home down the street of cousin Andreas (Winny) and his wife Marianne. In the late afternoon we took the streetcar down into Mainz to go on a Sektkellerei (sparkling wine cellar) tour at the Kupferberg sekt factory. With commentary generously in English, the tour guide led our large family group down into the subterranean caverns lined with filth (that’s not filth, that’s useful fungus!) and filled with fermenting bottles. At the farthest reaches of the tour were some Roman caves over two millenia old. After the tour was a sekt tasting with five different glasses with varying degrees of flavor, dryness, sugar, etc. We learned much and enjoyed drinking with our friends more and more as the tasting wore on.

Our third and last day in the Munich area started with a car tour of Munich sights courtesy of Renate, ending at the Hofgarten and the Pfaelzer Weinprobierstube, right on Odeonsplatz across from the Feldherren memorial. More traditional Bavarian fare was shared among us for lunch (including a roasted dumpling dish), and then we did some more Christkindlmarkt spelunking. We went to one market that was a medieval-themed one –sort of like our cheesy Renaissance Fairs in the States, but, like, in the correct country and with actual antiquities in the surroundings. Some of the booths had animated puppets portraying traditional German fairy tales: Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Pope and the Snowman…

Then it was back to the car for a quick trip out to the huge Nymphenburg Palace and then on to a family gathering in the suburbs at Sabrina and Marcy’s home.

Sabrina and Marcy live on a huge plot of land in a ~100 year old farm house out on the rural edge of Munich. Sharon brought a toy for their dog Casey and Renate’s cat Sasha (Sasha originally belonged to Chris’s mom Monika’s, and was whisked away to live with Renate in Munich after Monika’s death in 2006). Sabrina said that we should bring the toy inside before nightfall or the “little foxes” would get it and take it to their dens. (We think she meant ferrets.) Sabrina also keeps several rescued degus. Lucky girl!

Sabrina prepared an amazing meal of roast duck, fish and shrimp, risotto and mashed potatoes with sauted truffles. Much champagne and beer was consumed. We were then delivered back to the Munich apartment for deep sleep.