We met in Frankfurt at the airport and rented a car. Driving on the autobahn is a real experience. It really isn't as frightening as I had been led to believe. The autobahn (and the cars!) are built for high speed, but you don't have to drive as fast as you can. The semis are confined by law to the right hand lane and they have a speed limit of 100 kph (60 mph). Everyone stays to the right except to pass, whereupon you move back over to the right. The far left hand lane is for those who feel more confident with their vehicles' road capabilities (translation - REALLY REALLY FAST!!!) If you need to get out of their way, they flash their headlights at you. Once you get used to the speed, it's a pretty civilized way to drive. By contrast, driving in Chicago is a free for all, even with a lower speed limit. People think nothing of passing wherever they can, and that includes the shoulder!
We spent our first night in Germany with Michael's friends the Taubers. They live in a small town NE of Frankfurt and they own an apotheke or drug store . They live in a beautifully renovated old house and are probably some of the most gracious people I've ever met. I was amazed to discover that I can understand a lot of German, but speak very little. So my contributions to the conversation were in English!
We toured around Frankfurt the next day. Ben and I engaged in some empirical research for my book project "Everyone Knows This One!" One of my students last summer had just returned from two years in Thailand with the Peace Corps and taught me this song in Thai about elephants. He assured me that everyone in Thailand knows it! We had stopped to buy bratwurst and "pommes mit mayo" (French fries with mayonaise - !!) from a street vendor and there was another vendor next door called "Chaang" - Thai for "elephant." Ben and I decided to see if they knew the song. I wanted to find out if everyone from Thailand really DOES know the song! After making the usual apologies for my German and asking if they spoke English ("Nein!"), I launched into the song. The woman looked at me for a minute. I suppose it did seem strange to hear a redheaded American singing in Thai, but by the second phrase she had chimed in, and by the end of the song everyone was singing and doing the motions. When the vendor's son returned from an errand, they pointed to me and started the song again and he joined in too!!! So here we all were on the sidewalk singing and doing the motions and when we were done, there were high fives all the way around and much laughter. If I can figure out how to do it, I'll post the song. Thank you for the "Chaang" song Matthew! What a great way to make friends. (I might add here that I had a very similar experience at a Thai restaurant in Minneapolis. Our waitress spoke little English, but she knew the song. The whole staff came out and sang it!)
In the evening we headed to Munich. It was a longer trip than we anticipated. There was an accident between Nurnberg and Munich and traffic was backed up for miles. Unfortunately, accidents on the autobahn are rarely survivable, thanks to the high rate of speed. The car involved was crumpled up like a soda can. It was a sobering reminder that you need to be vigilant when driving..... probably useful on US highways as well.
I had been to Munich once before, but I'd had a GPS system and it was daylight, and this time we had the benefit of neither. Of course, we promptly got lost. Things were not particularly well marked, but then most Germans take mass transit or know where they are going. They're not as car dependent as we are! We ended up in the Old City in the pedestrian zone. We finally found a landmark that both Michael and I recognized and from there it was smooth sailing. We found our hotel, but it was late and we were hungry. We found an Indian restaurant that was willing to make us some carryout, but they were very generous while we waited for our food and gave us some pappadam (YUM!!) and a mango liquer (double YUM!) and of course we had to have some beer. The food was delicious and worth the wait.
We woke up relatively early the next day (jet lag) and headed over to the Orff-Zentrum for a short visit with Doctor Thomas Rösch, the director. The Zentrum is jointly owned and operated by the state of Bavaria and the estate of Carl Orff. There is all manner of Orff materials housed there, including just about every edition of the Schulwerk ever published in every language. I was really excited about looking through some of resources, but that had to wait until later. There were many other things to see and do, and our host would not be free until later in the afternoon, so we went and explored in the Altstadt. The glockenspiel at the City Hall was amazing. I know that sounds trite, but there really aren't words to describe it satisfactorily. The old churches were of course beautiful.
It always astounds me how OLD everything is! America is such a young country in the scheme of things.....
After a day of sightseeing, I went to a concert at the Orff-Zentrum. There is a lovely performance area with a beautiful Bechstein on the second floor of the Zentrum and a concert series is offered throughout the year. This evening's concert was a piano recital by Cornelia Herrmann, a resident of Salzburg. She played beautifully, one of those performers who has complete control of the sound she is making at all times. The Bach English Suite No. 5 was particularly fine. Fabulous sense of line! (Maybe if I practiced I could play like that.... one can always dream *sigh*) For more information, you can check here:
orff-zentrum.de/veranstaltungen_vorschau.asp
or here:
corneliaherrmann.com
Speaking of Salzburg: our next day's destination. We managed to get a good deal on some train tickets. It is worth knowing that the trains run bang on the dot on time. If your train leaves at 9:18 (as ours was scheduled to), you can bet that it leaves at 9:18. Not 9:17, not 9:20 but 9:18. We knew we were cutting it close and so we RAN through Munich, through the subway station, through the train station to the FARTHEST track. There were several hopeful newspaper hawkers spread throughout the station and I unfortunately crashed into one of them and went sprawling. Needless to say, we missed the train. It was not a huge catastrophe as there was another one about an hour later. We caught our breath and settled in to some nice seats on the top deck.
The train stopped at Prien am Chimsee along the way, so we piled off the train and into a taxi and went to Breithunn to see Gunnild Keetman's mill house. Of course we aroused the suspicion of the neighbors and their dogs. After all, they probably aren't used to a taxi load of Americans wandering the street in the middle of the day. We then went back to Prien and visited Keetman's grave. The cemetery was small and well kept. The graves are lovingly tended to and embellished with flowers and candles.
We managed to do all this in the space of 45 minutes. We hopped back on the next train and climbed higher and higher into the Alps. Naturally there was snow. Since all three of my traveling companions are from Texas, this was an oddity. Since I am from Wisconsin and currently (STILL) suffering from the snowiest winter on record, this was an annoyance. In spite of the snow, or perhaps because of it, Salzburg is astonishingly beautiful. We've all seen the clips from "The Sound of Music" (our hotel played it on the TV 24/7), but the movie can in no way prepare you for the actual size of the Hohensalzburg which looms over the city......
....... to be continued.......
