Smiling smiling, always smiling.

Oh my gosh we skipped Germany! Ken and I are currently in Nice, France after 3+ weeks in Germany, a visit to Strasbourg, and a quick jaunt to Luxembourg, and we didn’t blog once! Have no fear; we took notes, and many many mental pictures.

We both LOVED Germany. I feel that it’s not so necessary to go into detail about every day we spent there, but to explain how the trip is progressing and twisting and changing, all for the better. We visited Berlin for 4 days and 4 nights and after about half a day it became evident that this was not enough time. The culture there is so diverse and the city so huge and changing at every turn it is impossible to really see everything without at least a week, but probably more. I admit fully to my ignorance about the Berlin Wall and the divide of East and West Germany prior to this trip. We took a FANTASTIC and free tour around the city (did I say FANTASTIC?) and we barely stepped out of East Berlin! The stories we heard from our guide were so unbelievable, and yet when you stand and stare at an expanse of wall that runs down the middle of a city street you can’t help but shake your head. And now, to look at the way the city has bounced back and embraces its history you just want to shake the hand of every German you meet. (A quick note to mention that we LOVED the Germans we met, but more about this in a moment.) The most fascinating concept we learned about Germany, that we still haven’t quite grasped (but frankly, Germans struggle with it as well), is the concept of living with your past and honouring the history without being drowned by it. We stayed in hostels, with local residents, did tours and went to museums and memorials and they all state the same thing. How do we honour the victims of WWII and the inhabitants whose lives were torn apart by the few decades in history where Germany was the enemy whilst realizing that we, the survivors, were not the culprits? Until the 2006 FIFA world cup help in Germany, it was entirely uncommon to see a person flying their German flag with pride for fear of being called a Nationalist. It totally puts into perspective the confusion Canadians feel over being proud. I think of the history lessons we learn about Canadians during the two major wars and we sounds like downright heroes. Imagine that the Germans are taught they were all monsters.

Germany is very advanced in many ways and the most evident of this was the total acceptance for art in all forms. We visited a bombed out WWII building which has been taken over by squatters, but not the way we Canadians see squatters, these people make it their life’s passion to create art for people and to live simply. They create beautiful murals and take old broken cars and paint them, they grow gardens down ravines long since forgotten. ‘Tachales’ is the name of the squat and if you want a bonfire in the middle of a big city, or an outdoor bar, or a club, or a room full or stunningly provocative art, this is the place to visit. We actually went first during a pub-crawl and enjoyed the space first as partygoers, and then again a few days later during the day to visit the quieter artists studios. I could have spend a whole day meandering through this building and I only wish there had been a dance performance or a theatre show during our visit.

Munich was great and made even better by the two wonderful women we stayed with. Joanna and Beate are an older gay couple who by the end of our four-day stay became more than just hosts, they became friends. There are many exciting things about Munich itself but this city was made all the more exciting because we loved even the quiet moments drinking coffee and watching ‘Bones’ their favourite TV show. I have to mention that Hoffbrau House, the oldest and most famous beer hall in Munich absolutely lives up to its fame. 1 litre of beer is about 7euro and let me tell you, for a smaller woman one is enough; too bad I didn’t stop there. I have added a photo of Ken below that we like to call ‘The Bet,’ you can ask him what the terms of the bet were but I warn you he is sworn to secrecy.

Another day that must be mentioned is the day we went to Dachau concentration camp. We spent 6 hours wandering through the grounds and the museum and by the end of the day I was so sick to my stomach it took the entire 40 minute tram ride home to regain some feeling of normalcy. And even now as we sit on trains or take warm showers I think of some of the quotes I read, personal accounts of either survivors of final postcards thrown desperately from trains as it entered the grounds of this horror. The most frightening part of the visit was that the whole camp is surrounded by a suburb. People went about their daily lives whilst people were dying and being tortured right outside their windows. I absolutely recognize the fear factor that reigned through the people during this time, but I can’t imagine living with this knowledge. The guilt must have eaten away at them. It was on one hand very hard to imagine that at one time 32 000 people were imprisoned here. The camp was built to house 6000. While we visited the site, we would often go an hour at a time without seeing another person. And yet you feel the presence so deeply in your bones that there are ghosts living in the earth you can’t stop shivering. We took only 3 photos whilst in Dachau. We wanted to show people want we saw if only so you can all feel a fraction of what we did, without glorifying in any way the memorial site.

After Munich we went to Heidelburg where it snowed and created a picture perfect day to play on the grounds of a castle. We loved this beautiful village. The winding streets going up up up the side of a mountain and through narrow cobbled alleys. We took a ‘hike’ up philosopher’s walk and across the old bridge. This was particularly treacherous due to very wet snow and a very dense fog.

We also visited Cologne and Dresden. It got colder and colder each day. But have no fear! Our hosts in Cologne were lovely and gave us a free pass to a day spa. Seriously, sometimes I can’t believe the kindness of strangers. They asked us one night what our plans were for the next day and we told them we would go to a nearby town to enjoy a spa our guidebook had mentioned. But, when we researched this online we found that in the short time we were in Cologne the spa was under renovation. (Seriously, this whole continent is under construction!) After a short discussion in German they told us they have a pass that their work refills whenever they finish the money on it. So, the next day we walked through a very COLD town to a beautiful spa. It was a little strange at first, as we discovered the people of Germany don’t care if you are male or female in the change room, so OK, off came the clothes and freely we walked through the spa wearing nothing but the gifts God gave us. The sauna is our new best friend. We lay in a room of 90°C where a man performed a relaxation and detoxification ritual using peppermint and other herbed oils. It was fabulous. I swear my skin was breathing for the first time in a month. And then, when you can’t handle the heat for one more minute you step outside, yes outside, on the snowy terrace and let your skin steam off. Bliss.

Dresden was awesome because we stayed with a student who is very active in couch surfing. We had a horrendous day of traveling across the country. A snowstorm which hit the south of Germany (and much of the UK as we later found out) kicked the crap out of the DeutchesBahn network leaving us stuck on a train from Frankfurt to Dresden standing in the little accordion section between two cars with all our bags and not an inch of space. Needless to say, by the time we arrived at the Couchsurfing monthly meeting at Café-100 we needed a beer- badly. We had a great time exploring the city that was completely destroyed overnight by a bomb-raid in WWII and then rebuilt to look like a Medieval town as it did pre-war. We saw the church that was rebuilt, the Baroque ‘playground’ the old palace and many other beautiful sites. Though nothing quite sticks out like the piece-de-resistance that we went to Dresden just to see: Oh yes! The 2, 010 pound fruitcake that they wheel through the streets of the town to the famous Christmas market to be cut up and served to the locals. So weird but hey PROST! We had a blast in Dresden and I personally was not ready to leave. We had one moment in particular that was really special- our host made us homemade sushi. Ken has wanted to try this for a long time and I resisted because I thought it was way too hard, but it turns out its rather easy and I would gladly do it again. I’ll make an adventurous eater out of him yet!

So yeah, every day gets crazier and crazier. Seriously, I didn’t even melt down on our horrible travel day. I just laughed and knocked the cap off my bottle of beer and took a swig. I mean really, am I not the luckiest person right now? And I actually do feel it. I smile all the time. I generally thought of myself as a happy person before this but every day the dreams of where I would like my life to go become more and more concrete as I see things that I NEVER expected to see. And so, to dream the impossible dream, becomes, if not for an mere instant, to live the impossible life.

Chocolate, beer and waffles. And a little boy who pees.

Yikes! This is what happens when you are having fun. You don’t write any blog posts. But I have to say. The times are getting good. Brussels was a wild and wacky experience. We arrived midday to stay with a couchsurfer who had agreed to host us for 3 nights. He was having a party with a bunch of other people, mostly couch surfers and we had a wicked Moroccan meal then it was off to French class. I know, random right? Well this guy is really active within couchsurfing and he hosts these French conversation practice classes. Everyone just meets at a bar and the only rule is that you must speak French. It was awesome! I was totally in my element, and they considered me in the expert category… awesome. Plus I learned a great sentence to annoy my mother with: “Ca ne ma rien de la foutre.”

That night we were just hanging out at homebase and in pops another surfer! Now there were four of us. We ended up talking till 2 am with a Belgian guy, a Bosnian girl and a German girl.

Day one in Brussels found us getting a tour with our host, we saw the beautiful Gothic town hall and Grand Place, the Arc de Triomph ( I know…. I thought it was in Paris too, turns out, there are a few.) The Mannequin Pis. Did you know they dress him in little costumes? I tried my first Belgian waffle. Oh My God. I now know why they are famous. North American waffles do NOT compare. We saw the European union headquarters, the palace of justice, all the famous museums. It was all pretty excellent. I must say, Brussels is pretty dirty. Especially the central station. And there are a lot of homeless people. There was one guy in the underground system who I saw a bunch of times with three dogs and a rabbit. No seriously, a rabbit. Sheesh. On our tour we ended up picking up ANOTHER surfer from central station. She was an American girl who is working in Turkey. Later that night as we were all sitting around reading, chatting, planning the next stages of our travel, yet ANOTHER surfer arrived. One girl had left earlier that day so now we had 5 surfers. The whole heard of us went out for a beer late in the evening and it was seriously like a bunch of sheep following the sheppard.

Day two we went walking around some more. We ended up at the Magritte museum. I’m not especially versed in art but the surrealist style this guy used was pretty exciting. They also had a bunch of quotes of his on the walls. Ma favourite read:

“Tout ce que je sais de l’espoir que je met dans l’amour, c’est qu’il n’appartient qu’a une femme de lui donner une realite.”

We bid adieu to Brussels quite early day 3 and spent an afternoon in Ghent. A quaint medieval town that had a castle called the Gravensteen (the count’s castle). It was excellent exploring the building, the views of the city were gorgeous, and the information regarding the history of the town, dating back to the 12th century. It of course had other purposes since, a prison, a courthouse, apparently even a cotton factory. Now it’s an awesome museum with a lot of history of torture, complete with guillotine.

That night it was off ot Elseghem. A tiny village in the Belgian countryside where we met some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever encountered. We were some of the first Canadians to meet Ken’s distant Belgian relatives. They served us a beautiful meal, we got along really well, learning about life in Belgium. The conversation was often quite funny because they speak Flemish (a dialect of Dutch) and we know very little. Dank u well. We spent a perfect day walking around farm country (yay sheep!), meeting 2nd cousins twice removed, eating waffles and cheese, and drinking beer made by monks. We also took a trip to Ypres and saw Tyne Cott cemetery, the largest commonwealth cemetery in the world. It commemorates the soldiers who fought during the first world war, notably the battle of Passchedale. I found this absolutely breathtaking. 12, 000 gravestones. 35, 000 names of men missing in action. New Zealand seeing it’s greatest loss in the history of the country, nearly 1/6 of the population. My great grandfather fought in this battle and survived and I must say, Flanders Fields is probably the most powerful place I’ve ever visited. In the town of Ypres there is an arch that leads into the city centre that has many more names of fallen soldiers and every day at 8pm they do the Last Post. They have performed this ritual every single day since 1928. I shivered throughout the trumpet playing and looked around at over 200 people gathered. This apparently is a wonderfully normal occurrence. I felt down to my very core the truth of the words: “Never Forget”

Early the next morning it was travel time again this time GERMANY! We took a wonderfully long train from Elseghem to Brussels, Brussels to Cologne and the Cologne to Berlin. I think for most this would see annoying and long. It was long, but traveling is something we are really enjoying. It offers us time to sit, view the countryside, sleep, read, listen to music. Little things that we used to take for granted but are now quite special. Plus, first class all the way baby! Plus, on this day Ken and I celebrated 4 years together. Happy Anniversary!