Germany – Beer and Beauty

After four years of absence, I returned to Germany to visit two good friends I met in Washington DC. I stayed with my friend who makes her home in Nuremberg, which I found out was the headquarters of the Nazi party, quite ironically so since the people of Nuremberg protested strongly against the Nazi party; so much for resistance during that time. The whole city had been bombed like many of Germany’s strategic cities during WWII, but the Old Town was rebuilt as an almost perfect replica of the way it had been before the Nazis took over and before the Allies burned it. What a lesson in history and a time to really contemplate what war can do to a people and the manner in which people can overcome even terrible things like devastation and complete terror.

Even though Nazi history was one motif on this trip, I started out in Munich at Oktoberfest, something I have always wanted to experience but never really thought I would have the occasion. Beer is served in one liter glass mugs that each weighs about a kg (2.12 pounds). The servers must be at least capable of lifting 10 mugs of beer or five in each hand. It was truly impressive to see them carry around the beer and to serve people relatively quickly considering the number of people there. I am not sure what the number was the Thursday I went, but my friend told me that the number averages around 65,000 people per day. Throughout the fest, 500,000 chickens are killed and eaten and I can only imagine how many liters of beer are drunk – my guess was 2 million. Oktoberfest is very interesting in many ways. The smells of sausages, roasting nuts, smoke and beer are all mixed together in one large waft of fragrances that assault the nose no matter where one goes.

“Beer tents” are the places to be. Some people get to Oktoberfest at 9 am when the tents open just to secure a table. The music does not start until noon, so there are many people who come just to sit and drink beer, waiting for the action to start. It was unbelievable but we walked into one of the most famous tents, which was not really a tent but more like a massive impermanent structure made to hold a ton of people and decorated with all sorts of interesting things like garlands, lights, mascots and hops plants, and found a table at which we could sit down. It was pure luck really. We were walking around knowing that it would be almost impossible to find a place to sit down when we saw some people getting out of their table and another person ready to move in. My friend asked the guy who was ready to take the table if we could possibly sit down with him and his friends. Surprisingly, he was all for the idea and we got a great table where we drank liters of beer (mine was half beer and half lemonade) and ate giant pretzels. Even though I could not understand the 99.5 % of the German, I had a blast listening to everyone around me sing old German beer songs and love songs and happy songs. I even heard John Denver’s “Mountain Roads,” which brought me back to a time in 2004 when I was in Germany with my sisters and my dad and we were in a brew haus when someone with a guitar started playing that song which made everyone start to sing-a-long. My sisters and I were the only ones not singing. Well, this time, I gave a shout out to my fellow countryman and sang at the top of my lungs the chorus to “Mountain Roads.”

From Munich, I tagged along to the birthday party of my friend’s dad. I have not been in a situation in a while where I do not understand a single word of what is being said. Her family was so great, especially her mom who was so welcoming and hospitable. The only problem was that I do not know German and her family, well, save her sisters, do not know English. This is one example of what I experienced this weekend being with people who are my good friends but whose language I do not comprehend. You would think that maybe you could simply understand it, since German is related to English and all, but it is not true, nor was I even able to understand simple phrases. I am continually amazed at the power of language to confuse and open the minds of people. Without the ability to communicate, nothing happens, and we are so limited in the fluidity of how we comprehend language. Often times, if a word is not pronounced exactly the way our mind recognizes, we will be unable to comprehend its meaning, even when it is a word or a phrase in one’s own maternal tongue. I find that fascinating.

Picking up our other friend from the train station and made to wait for 15 minutes because like normal the train was late (for being so organized and for being known as a country of logic and rules, I was surprised to learn that the trains are almost always late although now passengers are compensated if a train is more than 30 minutes late), we walked into Nuremberg where the history of WWII awaited me. One of the most interesting things was to go inside St. Sebaldus Church which had been almost completely destroyed like the rest of the buildings in Nuremberg. Inside the church was a series of pictures and descriptions that told the story of start to finish how the destruction in Nuremberg came to be and how the renovation occurred and with whose commitment the city was rebuilt. Connecting with the poetic words and moving photographs, I found one poem particularly striking:

Peace – what is peace?
That we can go through the ruins
without fear of bombs?
That the sun warms people and stone
as if nothing had happened?
That the horror is already beginning
to belong to the past?

How interesting history is that one must remember it, but also one must move on and make do with the remnants that are left, occasionally rebuilding and occasionally leaving ruins to remain a testament to what passed beforehand. The next day we went to see a most famous site where Hitler made many speeches to hundreds of thousands of people. Even though I am about as far removed from Nazi Germany as one could get, I still felt impacted seeing the podium where Hitler once stood and imagining how electrifying that must have been; downtrodden, scared, and confused – a man like Hitler and his promises and his words must have sounded incredible and all that one could ever hope to hear. For the first time, I could almost feel what those people must have felt and I could better understand why the Holocaust happened and why people were deceived by a man as crazy and as disillusioned as Hitler. Now, that area is partially closed but the main area is used as an outdoor sports field and concert area. That is what I meant by needing to remember the past but also needing to move on with life and give into the mundane and ordinary; otherwise, we are stuck in a place – the morass of history – that one can never truly explain with veritable logic and certainty.

Well, from Nazi Germany to small town Baumberg, I made the change to a UNESCO world heritage site, which means that the city of Baumberg receives funding each year to help the town preserve its history and the beautiful aspects that make it so historical. What a city! It is built on seven hills (only four of which I walked up) and on each of the hills where I walked there was a beautiful church standing still and keeping guard over the city. One of the churches, really a monastery, had very interesting herbs painted on to the ceiling -something like 500; this monastery sheltered us from a fluke rainstorm, which was a blessing. A small river cut through the heart of the Old Town, but the most unique and renowned part of the river was Little Venice. Looking nothing like Venice, this small row of homes only resembled that city’s affinity for constructing homes right alongside the water with no barrier between the home and the water. I think I liked the German Venice more than the Italian one because I prefer German architecture to Italian.

Leaving Bavaria, but only slightly, we traveled to the Bodensee to run a half marathon on Sunday. After having experienced a day in Baumberg with some of the strangest weather I have ever seen – quick rain showers then blue skies immediately following – we were so blessed with some of the most incredible weather I have ever seen. The day was crisp with the sweet tang of fall in the air. Leaving the house while it was still dark, I was freezing even though I was wrapped up in a jacket, scarf, gloves and a hat. As the darkness receded from the sky, the brightness of the sun and the cloudless brilliance of the blue sky overtook me and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the day. I knew that I would not be running the half marathon very quickly, so I really was able to just think about other things, like praying and dreaming. My knee has been injured for a while now, which is the reason why I have been wearing my tennis shoes non-stop for about two weeks, but I ran the race anyway. After about two km, my knee started to throb. I felt like an old woman; I was not breathing hard at all, but I could not force myself to go any faster – one, because I did not want to be too stupid and two, because I was not really physically capable. With a view of the mountains and a crystal clear lake, I was able to concentrate on other things and really just enjoy the opportunity to run through two countries. I do not think that I will ever run another race as beautiful as that.

Funny thing, when I finished the race I went in search of some food and drink. I thought it would be easy to find some water since usually there is plenty of it during and after the race. Well, I went to one of the tables where it appeared like they were serving water, but when I looked into the cups, I noticed that it was sparkling water, not regular tap water. I laughed to myself and thought, I am certainly in Germany where sparkling water is definitely more common than tap water. I also saw people walking around with beer they purchased on the finish line grounds, which I later found out was in fact non-alcoholic. How funny would that have been though to see people drinking real beer at a marathon race! I chuckled at the situation.

After watching the first man and woman who won the marathon, we took showers and hopped in the car not knowing what horror awaited us. It just so happened to be the end of a three day vacation, from which all of Germany was coming back, and just happened to want to enter Germany on the same roads we were trying to use! How awful. We wanted to explore the region a little, even going into Austria and Switzerlan

d, but we were stuck in traffic for about two hours. My poor friends had no idea what to do, and all I could do was stare out the window, pray and twiddle my thumbs. We caught small glimpses of the Bodensee and the mountains, but for the most part we were stuck on streets, not particularly pretty streets, going to who knows where…St. Galen (supposedly a nice town according to the map, but really just an ugly no-nothing place in which we were disappointed to find ourselves). My friend kept saying if only we had done this or if only we had done that, to which I replied that there is no sense trying to think of what we could have or should have done differently. After saying that, I realized that it was a very true statement, applicable in most of life’s situations. We have no way of knowing what the future holds, so we take a path, hoping it is the right one. Sometimes, however, you encounter traffic jams, you find yourself in places you wish you weren’t, but you continue forward, reflecting but not regretting, correcting the mistakes but not getting discouraged or disappointed.
When we arrived at the four hour mark of being in the car, we ended up right where we had started, unfortunately with nothing to show for it…oh, well. We had a nice walk in Lindau, with the lights casting a beautiful glow over the small charming town; then we were back home. What a day, but overall, something good and more than anything, something memorable, which in the end is what traveling is all about.