Mom's Visit Part II
Paderborn continued...
Let me first preface our trip to Paderborn with this: We ended up having to wait for our train for a long time. Having plenty of time to kill I ate a delicious mozzarella sandwich while Mom had coffee. A kindly old gentleman-sort noticed us taking pictures of ourselves (slightly embarrassing) and offered to take our picture. He asked us where we were going. Paderborn? There's nothing there, he replied. I laughed it off. That's why we're going, I said, to get away from it all, picturing a remote cozy little cabin in rolling hills of trees.
We finally arrived at the train station. Suddenly his words came back loud and clear. Paderborn, there's nothing there. Well, it certainly looked like it. Not romantic. Not tucked away in rolling mountains. It was like this: you're driving down the expressway. You see this place. You don't think anything. There's just something subconscious in you that says "Let's keep driving and find something better." Or when you're buying dish-washing soap the same thing that makes you buy the orange one instead of the cream-colored. You know what I mean?
Anyway, to add to the un-remarkableness of the place, since it was Sunday there were very few buses running. It was freezing cold and we didn't want to wait inside. Plus (get this) the train station didn't even have a bathroom, just a porta-potty. Even the train has a working toilet! It was a little hard to believe. Anyway, we ended up taking a taxi and then had to pay way too much for it because the driver didn't know how to get there. It seemed like everything was against us. We finally got to our room, unpacked and just sat there. Mom got out the sweater she was knitting. We just sat there in the silence for a while and tried to think of something positive to say.
Finally we did. We decided to go for a walk. Now this was right after the hurricane force wind storm. Almost all of the paths were blocked. But this was Adventure calling my name. I started climbing every tree in sight and getting sap all over my jacket. It was at that very moment that Paderborn (technically we were in the village of Hebram-Wald) started to be the coolest place ever.
From there everything just started to get better. A huge platter of meats and cheeses, mineral water in blue glass bottles, trees aplenty, the feeling of really owning a place (we walked up and down every street, that is, all three), creamy tomato soup, huge snowflakes after a snow-less Duesseldorf winter, tasty beer, my backpack hedgehog suddenly having a personality, starting to recognize the locals, a friendly cat with a history to match, having a smiling schoolgirl wait with us for the bus to Paderborn, finding pants that actually fit, having a local recommend a church to us, Mom going church picture-crazy. Yeah, it turned out very different in the end.
Aachen: This trip went, more or less, as planned. The beautiful thing about our trip to Aachen was that somehow things just fit together and worked out in ways that we never could have planned.
The majority of the day was spent touring the cathedral and admiring the treasures of the museum. It was, of course, beautiful but also exhausting. After a certain point you can hardly take it all in. However, the tour guides at Benrath had taught me to notice the little details, so details were what I sought. Like a tiny skull marking the plaque for the memory of the dead. Like miniature coat-of-arms representing different German states. Like a delicious chocolate Berliner. Oh wait, that wasn't in the cathedral. Anyway, it was delicious. We also had an excellent tour guide (we were her only visitors at the time). She paid us the double compliment of assuming we were Scandinavian and that we were sisters. Oh, also as we were walking to the Dom I noticed a weird-looking statue. It was supposed to be King Stephan but it look like a homeless man in a space blanket. (If you don't know what a space blanket is, forget it. It's not funny if you have explain it.) It seemed fitting that it was outside of the Hungarian chapel. But again, takes takes too much explanation.
We also found a small museum that was formerly the house of an apothecary. It was pretty cool. It was interesting to compare it to Benrath. It was kind of the difference between having an interior decorator and architect design your house or building and decorating everything yourself. One is always more cozy, the other more impressive. They also had a room devoted to exhibiting a collection of delft tiles (I later saw more in Amsterdam, of course). Mom was so excited about the tiles I was worried she might pass out. Good thing my camera has a lot of memory.
After the house museum we went to a little Kneipe (bar) called "The Unicorn." It was perfect. A regular old man pops (?) Anyway, the kitchen wasn't going to open for another 40 minutes so we ordered some beers and settled in. We wrote postcards and Mom told me about their recent vacation to northern Michigan. Sitting there in that bar, sipping beer and warming my ears the story seemed like legend from a time long ago and a long ways off. Anyway, after we ordered the food was a bit delayed or maybe they just felt sorry for us. In any case they gave us a small appetizer: caviar. I could barely contain my excitement. My first caviar. I never thought I'd live to see the day! The food came. And it was excellent. The tasty end of a wonderful trip.
Well, that was what we did! Now for the pics...
Mom's trip to the Neanderthal included this pic that I had to include
Up close and personal in Duesseldorf
Let me first preface our trip to Paderborn with this: We ended up having to wait for our train for a long time. Having plenty of time to kill I ate a delicious mozzarella sandwich while Mom had coffee. A kindly old gentleman-sort noticed us taking pictures of ourselves (slightly embarrassing) and offered to take our picture. He asked us where we were going. Paderborn? There's nothing there, he replied. I laughed it off. That's why we're going, I said, to get away from it all, picturing a remote cozy little cabin in rolling hills of trees.
We finally arrived at the train station. Suddenly his words came back loud and clear. Paderborn, there's nothing there. Well, it certainly looked like it. Not romantic. Not tucked away in rolling mountains. It was like this: you're driving down the expressway. You see this place. You don't think anything. There's just something subconscious in you that says "Let's keep driving and find something better." Or when you're buying dish-washing soap the same thing that makes you buy the orange one instead of the cream-colored. You know what I mean?
Anyway, to add to the un-remarkableness of the place, since it was Sunday there were very few buses running. It was freezing cold and we didn't want to wait inside. Plus (get this) the train station didn't even have a bathroom, just a porta-potty. Even the train has a working toilet! It was a little hard to believe. Anyway, we ended up taking a taxi and then had to pay way too much for it because the driver didn't know how to get there. It seemed like everything was against us. We finally got to our room, unpacked and just sat there. Mom got out the sweater she was knitting. We just sat there in the silence for a while and tried to think of something positive to say.
Finally we did. We decided to go for a walk. Now this was right after the hurricane force wind storm. Almost all of the paths were blocked. But this was Adventure calling my name. I started climbing every tree in sight and getting sap all over my jacket. It was at that very moment that Paderborn (technically we were in the village of Hebram-Wald) started to be the coolest place ever.
From there everything just started to get better. A huge platter of meats and cheeses, mineral water in blue glass bottles, trees aplenty, the feeling of really owning a place (we walked up and down every street, that is, all three), creamy tomato soup, huge snowflakes after a snow-less Duesseldorf winter, tasty beer, my backpack hedgehog suddenly having a personality, starting to recognize the locals, a friendly cat with a history to match, having a smiling schoolgirl wait with us for the bus to Paderborn, finding pants that actually fit, having a local recommend a church to us, Mom going church picture-crazy. Yeah, it turned out very different in the end.
Aachen: This trip went, more or less, as planned. The beautiful thing about our trip to Aachen was that somehow things just fit together and worked out in ways that we never could have planned.
The majority of the day was spent touring the cathedral and admiring the treasures of the museum. It was, of course, beautiful but also exhausting. After a certain point you can hardly take it all in. However, the tour guides at Benrath had taught me to notice the little details, so details were what I sought. Like a tiny skull marking the plaque for the memory of the dead. Like miniature coat-of-arms representing different German states. Like a delicious chocolate Berliner. Oh wait, that wasn't in the cathedral. Anyway, it was delicious. We also had an excellent tour guide (we were her only visitors at the time). She paid us the double compliment of assuming we were Scandinavian and that we were sisters. Oh, also as we were walking to the Dom I noticed a weird-looking statue. It was supposed to be King Stephan but it look like a homeless man in a space blanket. (If you don't know what a space blanket is, forget it. It's not funny if you have explain it.) It seemed fitting that it was outside of the Hungarian chapel. But again, takes takes too much explanation.
We also found a small museum that was formerly the house of an apothecary. It was pretty cool. It was interesting to compare it to Benrath. It was kind of the difference between having an interior decorator and architect design your house or building and decorating everything yourself. One is always more cozy, the other more impressive. They also had a room devoted to exhibiting a collection of delft tiles (I later saw more in Amsterdam, of course). Mom was so excited about the tiles I was worried she might pass out. Good thing my camera has a lot of memory.
After the house museum we went to a little Kneipe (bar) called "The Unicorn." It was perfect. A regular old man pops (?) Anyway, the kitchen wasn't going to open for another 40 minutes so we ordered some beers and settled in. We wrote postcards and Mom told me about their recent vacation to northern Michigan. Sitting there in that bar, sipping beer and warming my ears the story seemed like legend from a time long ago and a long ways off. Anyway, after we ordered the food was a bit delayed or maybe they just felt sorry for us. In any case they gave us a small appetizer: caviar. I could barely contain my excitement. My first caviar. I never thought I'd live to see the day! The food came. And it was excellent. The tasty end of a wonderful trip.
Well, that was what we did! Now for the pics...
Mom's trip to the Neanderthal included this pic that I had to include
Up close and personal in Duesseldorf