Don’t expect to get a glass of tap water at a restaurant or café; it’s an unusual request that probably won’t be understood or honoured.

– Lonely Planet Germany

Now, before I go on, I want to clarify that this post is NOT a complaint of what I saw in Germany and Prague; it’s just a description of how it was surprising to these American eyes, and perhaps also a description of how the American approach such a mundane topic might be surprising to people from elsewhere. (Update: I want to clarify that I only visited 3 cities in Germany plus Prague. I don’t want anybody to assume that I’m making generalizations about the entire continent here, despite my title; I think the comments reflected that I didn’t make this point clear enough. I lack data to draw much of any generalization at all; this is more of reporting on my experiences than anything else.)

Utilitarian Water

I noticed that the vast majority of toilets I saw in Germany and Prague are of the extremely water-saving variety, with an option for a small or a large flush. These toilets exist in the USA, but are still rather uncommon here. I was glad to see this attitude of conserving water.

I was a bit surprised when I took a shower at our hotel in Berlin. Although that hotel was extremely environmentally-conscious in every other way — including the toilets, light switches with RFID sensors and timers, etc — the shower head was the most wasteful of water I had seen in quite a few years. I felt rather guilty of using so much water for a shower.

But our hotel in Prague took shower heads to the next level. The shower head there was this huge square monstrosity, about a foot long on each side. I have never seen a shower head that big. It had a voracious appetite for water, too. Although it could be pointed in any direction, doing so was useless because, even at full blast, it was clearly getting not nearly enough water to propel the spray forward. It seems that this shower head needed special water-guzzling plumbing. But even without it, I felt even more guilty for showering in Prague. I suspect that I used more water for the two showers I took there than I would have over an entire week at home. I also very much suspect that this shower head would be illegal in the USA due to its water consumption. (I should note as an aside that the shower heads I saw in private homes were no different than American ones.)

One thing I didn’t see was lawn sprinklers. This may have been because there is less open grass in the places we visited, or perhaps because spring hadn’t yet really hit. In any case, I wonder if our American habit of pumping water from deep beneath the ground, only to shoot it up in the air and spray it back on the ground again might appear a bit odd to others.

Drinking Water – In Restaurants

We did a lot of walking in Europe, and sometimes we’d have walked awhile to get to a restaurant. I really prefer water when I’m thirsty, and ordered water with my meal at restaurants a few times. I stopped doing that, though.

The presentation varied, but usually it went along these lines: they brought a glass bottle to the table, it cost EUR2 – EUR5, and generally contained almost as much glass as water.

The most impressive display of water was at a Berlin restaurant. I wanted some water, and so did Terah. So the waitress suggested we could share an EUR 4.90 bottle (0.75L). Sounds good, I guess — although it’s less water than you’d get in a typical American bottle for one person, it seemed a lot by typical German restaurant standards.

A few minutes later, our water arrived. It required the waitress to use a full tray to deliver our water and its, well, water accessories. First she carefully placed a frosted plastic water holder, precisely centered on the table between the two of us. Into this, she carefully placed the water bottle. It was, of course, made of glass, and also tall — taller than most wine bottles, though containing less actual liquid. I am not yet sure of the purpose of the holder; it certainly wasn’t to keep the water cold, as it was served warm. Perhaps they feared the bottle’s impressive height acting as a sail and getting knocked over by a gentle breeze.

In any case, next came our water glasses, which appeared to be exactly like wine glasses, but bore the logo of the company that bottled the water etched in the glass. After that, she picked the water bottle back up out of the holder, carefully opened it (it was just a regular twist-off lid), and then poured water into each of our glasses. She was careful not to have even a drop run down the side of the bottle, and filled each glass precisely 2/3 full. The glasses were, of course, positioned carefully on the table, and the bottle of water returned to its place of honor within the water bottle holder. This process consumed most of the small quantity of actual water in the bottle.

I do believe that is the most elaborate presentation of a small amount of good ole H2O I have ever witnessed. It was made with the kind of care I would expect to be shown to someone that had just bought a $100 bottle of wine, not a EUR5 bottle of water.

We had walked a mile (1.6 km) to get to that restaurant, and I was indeed a bit thirsty. I wasn’t sure I wanted to drink all of my tiny quantity of water presented so elaborately all at once, so I had a sip of the beer I had the good sense to order along with the water. The beer, incidentally, cost roughly the same per liter as the water and was simply plonked down on the table with a complete lack of fanfare. Sadly, beer is not really very good for quenching thirst, due to its diuretic effects over time.

Another surprise came at a restaurant in Prague. It appeared to have the typical prices for water, so I ordered a local Czech orange soda to drink. It, like the water, was served in a smallish glass bottle.

In any case, I ordered a traditional Czech goulash to be served in a bread bowl, while Terah ordered some ribs. The waiter took our orders and menus, and returned a minute later bearing a bowl full of water and a lemon slice. This he put next to me, and announced, “wash for you.” My reaction was: Hmmm. This is different. (Which is why we went to Europe, after all!)

What is this for? Did he think my hands looked dirty and needed to be washed before eating? Or did he think I would get them dirty while eating, and somehow fail to use my napkin?

It turned out that the use of it became clear. I ate the goulash using the supplied spoon, but the bread bowl it was served in was of course edible too. It turns out it is pretty much impossible to eat a bread bowl that had contained a stew without getting your hands dirty, and the “wash” turned out to be quite practical and useful. It was free to wash my hands in, but I’m sure would have cost EUR5 had I wanted to drink it.

Drinking Water – American Restaurants

Some of you reading this may never have experienced water in an American restaurant, so allow me to explain. In a typical American restaurant, water is free and comes with unlimited refills. Americans generally think of water as healthy (and our doctors and government medical experts urge us to drink plenty of it), and water in a restaurant is a good way to save money while dining.

It would generally be considered questionable service if your glass of water at a restaurant got less than half full, and really quite bad service if it sat empty for more than a minute or two. A waiter at an American restaurant will typically go around with a pitcher of ice water. If your large water glass isn’t completely full, the waiter will pick it up and step a few steps back from the table before filling it from the pitcher. The waiter will then dump water and ice from the pitcher into it, usually overflowing the top such that some water and ice spills on the floor (so now you see the point of stepping back from the table). The glass will then be returned to your table, wet sides and all. It will be completely full, so you have to be careful not to spill when you take your first sip.

The fancier or more expensive American restaurants will offer a version of this, though without the spilling on the floor part. Usually at one of these restaurants, you’ll automatically get water set out for you when you arrive. This is free, and if you order another beverage, you’ll still keep your water. (Though at any restaurant, it would be quite acceptable to order water along with your other beverage.)

Needless to say, this water is coming from a faucet, not some glass bottle, but I’m fine with that.

A few American restaurants have bottled water on the menu, but I can’t recall ever seeing somebody with one in a restaurant.

Drinking Fountains

Drinking fountains are common in the United States. They provide free tap water to anyone. You can find them near almost any public restroom, whether indoors or outdoors. You can also find them in virtually every park, along some walkways or bicycle routes, in airports and train stations, and even in museums. They’re so common that I rarely even think about being able to find water in a city if I’m thirsty. Often you’ll find them installed in groups of two or three, with one at a lower height so as to be usable by children or adults in wheelchairs, and another at a regular height. Many indoor ones even contain integrated chillers to make the water cold (which, sadly, probably more than negate the environmental benefits of water fountains.)

I saw exactly two drinking fountains in Europe, and I can say I got a drink at 100% of the drinking fountains I saw there. One was in the Hamburg airport, but notably it was at the place where you wait to have them check your passport. So you can use a drinking fountain in Hamburg, but apparently you must do so before you have officially entered Germany.

The other one was in the Prague airport. It was in an out-of-the-way corner, on the lowest level, by the gates for the people that are flying out on the small planes. Which we were. Above it was a placard bearing a icon indicating that this was, in fact, a drinking fountain and how to use it. I was surprised at the need for the icon at first, but less so after I observed a man walk by, glance at the fountain, and wash his hands in it (rather than do so at a sink in the restroom 5 feet away).

As a result, we were sometimes a bit thirsty in Germany. By the time we got to Leipzig, we realized what was going on and bought a Coke bottle which we could refill from the tap water in restrooms as we went along. (This we kept until it was confiscated at a museum in Prague). I didn’t see many Germans carrying around bottles of water, but it was still cold, so it’s possible they were but were in a coat or bag. I was left with the somewhat unwarranted conclusion that some Germans must be either always slightly dehydrated, carrying around hidden bottles of water, or paying EUR2 for a small plastic bottle of water all the time.

In the USA, we do have bottled water. Among people that care about such things, there are certain people that drink only from bottled water as much as possible, and then there are other people that view bottled water as exceptionally expensive and an environmental catastrophe and avoid it as much as possible. I’m part of that latter group. I’ve noticed that statistics show that Germans consume more bottled water per capita than Americans do, which is not really a surprise given what I observed.

Conclusions

Part of the reason I wanted to go to Europe was to experience different approaches to things, and we surely did. I didn’t expect it to lead to a blog post about something as mundane as water, but here it has. I’ve got to say I like the overall attitude of water conservation in Germany, which seems to have gone further than it has in the USA. I also like the system of water fountains we have in the USA, which also helps the environment by reducing demand for plastic water bottles.

The “wash” for me in Prague was just great. One of those moments where I was completely surprised (and in a good way) by something. (I’m just glad the waiter spoke a bit of English, because I wouldn’t have figured it out at all otherwise.)

In the end, part of the fun of traveling is learning about these differences. So next time, we’ll just plan on finding a bottle to carry around at the start of our trip, and then thirst won’t be a problem. Perhaps I’ll even try washing my hands in a drinking fountain.

We arrived at Leipzig — surprisingly — about 5 minutes late on Wednesday morning. My friend Brad was at the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (central stration) to meet us. As we walked through the city with him, he commented that I hadn’t yet tried Currywurst, and there was a stand selling them with different levels of spiciness. I tried one and liked it; Terah was afraid to touch them. After a light lunch with Brad and Anna, we went back into town and saw the Völkerschlachtdenkmal (Monument to the Battle of the Nations). We were warned that it was weird and ugly. And when we arrived, I noticed that it was enormous. And, well, somewhat ugly. And, yes, weird.

After that, we walked through the old trade fair grounds. Leipzig has a long history as a trade center, and after they built the new trade fair grounds, the old ones were reused for other things — except for the old Soviet building, which is now both gaudy and abandoned. We picked up Fritzi, who is a very cute 4 years old, from preschool and returned to their house for supper.

After that, Brad and I went back into town, intending to hear a reading at the old city pool. When we realized it was a different day, we walked around the city center for awhile and then had a beer at a — yes — combination cafe/laundromat.

Thursday was our day to explore the city. Brad showed us a couple of buildings in the university, including the library, then dropped us off at St. Thomaskirche. That’s the church where J. S. Bach was music director for many years, and was buried. Like so many, it was impressive in its height and history.

Next we went to the Stasi museum. The Stasi were the feared and powerful East German secret police during the Communist times. The museum itself was housed in the former Stasi headquarters for Leipzig and was involved with the history of the overthrow of the Communists. The museum covered a lot of the history of the Stasi, including its frantic last days during the 1989 revolution. The level of spying on people was incredible and sophisticated, and they tried to destroy records as the overthrow of the government was imminent.

One of the offices in the inner part of the building was left untouched from the Communist years, right down to the typewriter and coffee machine.

After that, we went to the Altes Rathaus (old city hall or townhouse, built in 1556) to do a bit of shopping. Terah was wanting some souvenirs, and I had spotted a shop I thought she might like when walking through the city with Brad the night before. We had already bought some souvenirs at the Schloss Charlottenburg museum store in Berlin (some East German-style crosswalk fridge magnets, and a decorative egg), but wanted something a bit nicer for us and were on the lookout for gifts for others too. We wound up buying a wood carved church scene with a woven wheat tree for us, and another item for others. The shopkeeper spoke no English, and my German vocabulary is small, but we managed to communicate the question of whether or not she could wrap it up in a box for our trip home — and she could, and did. Excellent. (I didn’t know how to ask about box, but knew how to say that we were Americans, and with a fair bit of gesturing all around, managed to get the idea across.)

Then we went in the Altes Rathaus itself, which was both a museum and an interesting cultural experience. We bought our tickets at the booth downstairs, then went upstairs to the entrance. We asked for the English audio guide, which is very common at museums in Germany. (They are small digital audio players that contain recorded information; each room or display has a number you can key in to hear about it in your own language.) We got it, and were told in incredible detail how to use it, even though they are quite easy to figure out and we had used them before. The museum employee told us where the audio tour starts, and in what order it usually goes, which was an effort for her given her limited English. But we all understood and went on our way.

It wasn’t even 5 minutes later when she had left her desk and came over to us. She was slightly alarmed at two things: one that we didn’t have the volume at full blast (which was loud enough for the entire room to hear), and secondly that we weren’t looking at the exhibits in the proper order. Never mind that it’s easy enough to pull up the audio information about any room just by keying in the number posted in it, I guess. Anyhow, we sort of inwardly shrugged, let her turn the volume up to “potentially disturbing the other visitors” level, and went through the museum in the order she wanted us to. (Note that this wasn’t a museum where there is a one-way flow of traffic or something; you walk into one exhibit, back to the main hall, and then pick your next one.) So we went through the rest of the museum with our English audioguide blaring throughout the large, echoing, wood rooms, feeling a bit rude to the other visitors (maybe 5 of them while we were there) due to its volume.

Anyhow, the Altes Rathaus was beautiful and interesting, covering mainly the pre-industrial history of Leipzig. We learned about some of the guilds, the city treasury (vault), and where the town council/parliament met along with rich merchants. There were about as many museum guards as visitors there, and one or two of them sort of followed us around, pointing out the large and completely obvious signs with audio guide numbers in the rooms for us. They are serious about their audio guides in Leipzig.

I’m glad we went, and I’m glad we had the experience we did, too. Terah told me later that she felt reprimanded about the audio guide and visiting order. My take on it was a bit different: the museum is impressive and interesting, but obviously not visited by tourists as much as museums in other cities, or even touristy sites like Thomaskirche in Leipzig. I think they they noticed two people, obviously very foreign (speaking only a little German, and with an American accent) with an interest in their city’s history, and took pride in making sure we got the most of our visit and learned as much as possible about something they care about.

Here is the main hall of the Altes Rathaus.

We met up with Brad in a cafe near St. Thomaskirche for coffee and cake, then it was on to St. Nikolaikirche (the Church of St. Nicholas), the other large church in town. We stepped out of a passageway to face the large building, and walked in. The interior was decorated in pastels, and was also beautiful and historic. I can’t get enough of that sort of building, I think. This building was especially important because it was the site of organizing for the Monday evening protests against the Communist government in 1989. People met at the church, sang a few hymns (to qualify it as a religious service, perhaps), then organized their protest for the evening. Sometimes they would wind through city streets and put flowers at the Stasi headquarters steps, and once the citizens actually overtook the Stasi headquarters.

After awhile we grabbed a bit more for lunch: a pretzel for Terah and a Currywurst for me. (This one wasn’t spicy and wasn’t all that good.) Then we went to the GDR museum, which was large and interesting, but unfortunately for us, completely in German with no English guide available.

That evening, we went to a Bach concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, celebrating Bach’s 325th birthday. That was fun, and a neat experience with such good music in a very nice venue. The program included Bach’s Suite for Orchestra no. 1 in C Major (BWV 1066), Concerto for Violin no. 2 in E major (BWV 1042), Ich habe genug (BWV 82), and Suite for Orchestra no. 4 in D major (BWV 1069). Sir Roger Norrington was conducting, and was rather fun and atypical to watch. He had the audience chuckling a few times with his minimalist conducting — or perhaps his flamboyant gestures. Anyhow, the music was excellent and the tickets included free passage on the public transit system 3 hours before and after the concert — a nice touch.

Due to our schedule, we didn’t spend much time with Fritzi, but we did get to play with her a bit. She likes to pretend to be a shopkeeper, and had her “store” all ready to lay out. We would ask her for some items, which she’d put in a basket for us, and then of course there would be a child’s twist: we’d get our items, and she’d pay us for them too.

Terah and I brought some books for Fritzi. The particularly enjoyed Goodnight Moon because inside it is an picture of The Runaway Bunny, which she already had. Fritzi chose one of her books to give to Jacob — it was a German book (Maulwurf) based on a Czech cartoon mole. That was nice of her, and Jacob really liked it (I’ll write about that later).

We had a good time in Leipzig, and I was getting fairly good at navigating downtown and with the trams — and then, of course, it was time to move on. So Friday morning we caught our 7:50 train from the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. We took the ICE train to Dresden, then walked a few feet to get onto the EC to Prague. That was a bit of a funny experience. The ICE trains are all sleek, modern, meticulously maintained, and the passengers tend to be very quiet. Talking is barely above a whisper, and people seem alarmed if their cell phone rings, even outside the quiet car. The EC passenger car appears to have been built, or last renovated, in the 1970s, and may have been Hungarian. The seats and curtains are old and faded; some of the seat backs have rips in the vinyl headrests. People were talking or eating loudly, in a very different setting than on the ICE train.

As we rode along, we were on the right side the river Elbe for many miles. The scenery was beautiful, with small houses in the river valley, and the occasional house up in the hillside. At one point (a bit before we passed through Königstein on the way to the Bad Schandau stop), we spotted what looked like an old walled city up on the hill. I figured out later that it was Festung Königstein (Königstein Fortress).

Update: I forgot to mention a couple of things about Leipzig. One was our walk through a forest — yes, a forest in the city. That was a nifty, quiet, and pleasant surprise. Secondly was seeing all the DDR apartment blocks, where the apartments evidently were quite literally blocks. It is interesting to see the Communist architecture.

We’ve had a good time in Berlin — it’s been adventurous to be out on our own in an unfamiliar city with an unfamiliar language, but has gone well. I feel that I’m finally getting used to it a bit, and now tomorrow we move on to Leipzig.

Stepping off the train at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, and seeing all those people connecting to all those trains, I had a feeling of excitement: here is a grand train station that is actively used by so many people. I got a sense of what the beautiful and enormous Kansas City Union Station once felt like, I think; that station at its peak served almost the same number of people in a day at Berlin Hbf does.

(photo by eliotc)

Stepping outside in the cold and snow to wait for our bus, I got the first sense that Berlin felt a bit more like an American city than did Lübeck: a beggar with a suspicious story was working the crowd with “Speak English?” (We saw many dressed similarly using the exact same tactic during our stay in Berlin.) Our bus ride to the hotel showed us some graffiti — a fact of life in many cities in the USA too.

Our hotel, the Circus, most definitely did not feel American. The staff was very friendly (I think I’ve only seen that level of friendliness and helpfulness at one hotel in the USA: the Portland Doubletree). The room was small (which we expected) but very nice. There was a fresh flower waiting, and a whole printout of information with my name on it waiting in the room: info about the hotel, restaurant, and a multi-page history of this part of the city.

They are very energy-conscious there. The hall lights automatically turn off, but you can touch your (apparently RFID-enabled) room card to any “switch” to turn them on for a few minutes. When in your room, you put your key card in a little holder that keeps it safe — and enables the use of the lights. They don’t put shampoo in the rooms, but have a selection free for the taking at the front desk: the rationale being that it generates waste when they have to replace it for people that don’t need it replaced. They are very environmentally conscious — with everything except the showerhead, which appears to use so much water that it would be illegal in the USA.

Here’s the obligatory “surprising to an American” comment about Germany: the complete lack of water drinking fountains. In the US, you can get a drink of water at any building of any size — airports, train stations, museums, shopping centers, and also in many public places such as parks. I may have seen exactly one water fountain in the Hamburg airport, but that was it. It is odd given the general sense of environmentalism here that so much energy is being wasted on bottling water, not to mention the expense of having to pay for it all over the place.

The bus ride to the hotel was interesting. I needed to buy two tickets from the bus driver. I didn’t know the German word for ticket, so I just guessed and went with “Zwei Ticket, bitte.” “Wohin?” “Rosenthaler Str.” Then the price came up. I believe that was my first completely successful German-only conversation. (Most Germans hear a couple of words of mine and quickly switch at least partially to English, which probably gets things done a lot faster, and saves me embarrassment, but doesn’t give me much chance to practice my German.)

We ate dinner Monday night at the Hackesche Höfe at Weihenstephaner, a Bavarian restaurant. It was a fun meal, and the tables were long and seated multiple parties. I tried out their special Bavarian beer, and of course had some Wienerschnitzel. I had noticed apple strudel on their website but not on their menu, so when it was time for dessert, I asked our waitress if they had apple strudel today. They did, and it was delicious.

Tuesday began with a walk to the Pergamon Museum. From our hotel, this was a walk of about a mile. We had been introduced to excellent German bakeries during our time in Lübeck. So, since we hadn’t had breakfast, when we spotted a bakery along the road, we went in. Terah got a croissant with chocolate on top, which turned out to also have chocolate inside. I found a couple of smaller rolls with various seeds and flavorings on top. All were excellent, and I believe we spent less than EUR 2 all together. We ate our breakfast of rolls as we walked towards the museum. It was a cold and somewhat windy morning, but it was also fun and exciting to be there.

The Pergamon was quite the experience. The Pergamon Altar was the first large artifact we saw, and was particularly interesting given that I have recently read The Iliad and The Odyssey.

(photo by *hoodrat*)

The Market Gate of Miletus was also impressive, but the true highlight has to be the Ishtar Gate and processional way. Wow. It was built in 575BC by King Nebuchadnezzar II, and importantly was built out of glazed tiles, so the original artwork, color and all, still survives. You can walk through the processional way and get the feeling of kings and armies proceeding there. Truly spectacular.

(photo by Rictor Norton & David Allen)

After the Pergamon, we crossed a bridge to the east taking us off Museumsinsel (Museum Island). We walked down a quiet and somewhat forgotten back street and found a small restaurant for lunch. I had the “Berlin Wurst”, some excellent sausage with excellent and not-so-sour sauerkraut. Terah had some breakfast-type items with fruit. After that, we walked over to the famous Unter den Linden. It wasn’t yet spring, so the scenery wasn’t all that spectacular yet, but that — and the light snow — didn’t stop the tourists, or the tacky tourist shops, which appear to be a universal global feature. (“Berlin” flip-flops and t-shirts made in China, anyone?)

The destination of all this walking was the Brandenburger Tor, the famous Berlin icon. The Brandenburg Gate was immense, and the sense of history of standing there was impressive.

(photo by Andrew Mason)

We of course walked through the Brandenburg Gate on our way to the Bundestag, which we intended to tour. We didn’t, though, due to the cold and very long line snaking out of the building. We then got on the train to Checkpoint Charlie.

We saw the outdoor “checkpoint” still in the middle of the street. We intended to visit the museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, but was so packed that it was difficult to even get in the door. We stood in line to buy tickets for a few minutes, but made absolutely no progress; meanwhile, it appeared that an entire school group came in after us somehow and was also waiting to pay. So we decided to go see Schloss Charlottenburg instead.

(photo by Poom!)

The Schloss (palace) was a baroque design, intended to impress visitors with the power and wealth of the owners. Only the old wing was open Tuesday, but we had about an hour and a half available to tour it: enough to see the whole thing, but not enough to linger and read all of the information. It was impressive and interesting. Particularly interesting was the chapel, which was this odd state/religion combination — decorated both with sacred symbols as well as symbols of the king.

After Charlottenburg, we had dinner at the Prussian Restaurant Marjellchen near the Savignyplatz S-bahn. We started with a smoked herring appetizer. Then I had the Königsberg meatballs, and Terah had creamed ham. Both of us really enjoyed our meals, and Terah’s reminded her of Verenike.

Wednesday started with an early rise, then we went to Mauerpark to see a remnant of the Berlin Wall. I am glad to have seen it, and was a bit surprised with how small it was at that point compared to my expectations.

(photo by Eichental)

Then we had a few minutes back in our hotel to munch on some rolls for breakfast; after that, it was off to the Hauptbahnhof for our train to Leipzig.

When I think about Lübeck, the first thing that strikes me is the feeling of history underfoot. It struck me most when we set foot inside the Marienkirche. I had never quite felt a wave of a feeling of stepping back in time like that before. The stones on the floor were uneven and imperfect. Lübeck has had a wet and snowy winter, so the city had spread sand everywhere: sidewalks and roads. Walking into any grand church, I could hear the sound of sand under the shoes of everyone nearby, and feel it under my own shoes. I think I will long associate with Lübeck the feeling of walking into a grand old church, looking up at the top of the old building at seemingly impossible heights, while feeling the grit of sand and uneven stone beneath my feet.

Marienkirche isn’t perfect, like some American churches I’ve been in, such as the Basilica of Notre Dame. It doesn’t have a lot of gold, either, and both of these attributes are wonderful. Look at a column of bricks, and you can see that each brick isn’t exactly like its neighbor, and the entire column isn’t perfectly straight. Lots of things in Lübeck are so old that they aren’t perfectly straight, and it made me think that our American notion of always having to “fix” such things might be somewhat off sometimes.

Look up, and you see the frescos from the 1300s, revealed after many years after the building was struck by an allied bombing raid in 1942. This heavily damaged the building and knocked down plaster from the walls and ceiling, revealing the old artwork. Many parts of Marienkirche were lost as a result of the bombing, which perhaps adds to its slightly sparse and ancient feel. The church bells were sadly melted and crashed to the ground due to the bombing, and have been left exactly where they fell as a memorial.

Look down, and you see the uneven floor, and the concrete slabs above where important people were buried under the floor — an attribute common to many of the churches we visited. It was common to see dates of graves from the 1600s and 1700s, though in some places it would go as far back as the 900s.

The main part of the church has no heating or cooling, and visiting it on a day just a bit above freezing adds to the feeling of, well, old. Marienkirche has to be my favorite sight in Lübeck.

Walking around the city, I get a similar feel. Many streets and sidewalks are made of stone. The streets that weren’t damaged in the war have rows of beautiful old facades. Walk down many streets, and every so often I’d see a little tunnel (“just wide enough for a coffin”) that goes under the street-facing houses to a nice little inner courtyard. These are open to the public, but tend to be very quiet and somewhat private. In the courtyard are smaller houses, which would have originally been used by the less wealthy.

We also saw the Lübeck Dom (cathedral), which had a small museum about the destruction due to the Royal Air Force bombing in 1942. It was very sad to see the photo of the Dom in ruins, still smoking, even now.

I can only imagine what it must have felt like to residents of Lübeck to wake up to see many of their priceless centuries-old landmarks and places of worship so horribly destroyed — and all of this for little strategic purpose — really focused on the “morale of the enemy civil population”. It’s sad that the allies would do such a short-sighted and terrible thing. Europeans have long had to live with the legacy of war upon war, while we Americans have rarely had to see the consequences of war up close. I think it would be good for more of us to visit these sites and come up face to face with what a bomb can do, and then perhaps we will be more judicious with them in the future.

Shifting gears now to where we stayed: Andreas & Sigrid, with whom we stayed, have a beautiful 500-year-old house, with lots of original wood beams exposed, and some very old paintings on the walls and ceilings. Nearby were excellent bakeries and a chocolate shop. Terah and I visited it today and bought some very good chocolate.

And this brings me to the second thing I’ll remember: Andreas & Sigrid’s children, Lukas and Rahel. Now, Terah knows no German, I know only a little bit, and the children know no English. So it was a bit slow getting to know each other to start out, but we managed to work around the communication barrier and had a great time. Terah played board games with Rahel, while with me, she kept inventing games to play: hiding somewhere, saying “Hallo!”, and laughing at how many unsuccessful attempts I might make to find her. I showed Lukas the camera on my Droid, which he used a lot, though a racing game on Terah’s iPod Touch was more exciting. They both enjoyed looking at videos of American trains a bit, but especially pictures of our house and yard with Jacob and Oliver. They tried to teach me the German words for things, and also made futile attempts to correct my pronunciation!

When we were leaving today, Rahel came over and gave me a kiss on the hand, then the same to Terah’s hand, then a little kiss on one of our suitcases. It was touching and sweet.

This was one of those experiences no guidebook prepared me for, and no tour bus would have provided. It is something neat to make friends with children despite the large language barrier.

On to the rest of the visit…

We had arrived a little late into Hamburg. After getting our bags and some Euros at an ATM, the next step was to find the bus to Lübeck. No signs for it were evident, so I found an information desk. The person at the desk was carrying on a conversation in German with the person ahead of me in line. I figured an information desk person in a busy airport would speak English, and was all ready to ask “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”, but when I walked up, he got a polite smile, and said, “Good morning! How can I help?” Guess I’m obvious.

He directed me to the bus, gave me a brochure about it, and told me what time it would leave. Terah and I found the spot to wait, and for a moment I stepped inside the airport terminal. Terah won’t let me forget that someone came up to her and asked a question in German, whereas I was spoken to in English. Anyhow, we found the bus, managed to communicate with the driver that doesn’t speak English, and sat next to the friendly person that was talking to Terah. He turned out to be a violin player from Munich, and we had a great conversation for the next hour — he asking questions about the USA, us asking questions about Germany and Munich. At one point, he commented, “You two are so open minded… and you’re also Americans!” He sounded surprised. We exchanged email addresses at the train station.

Andreas found us there, and we walked through the city to his house, with him pointing out the sights along the way. Lübeck is a beautiful city, and though it was damaged in World War II, much of the really old parts still remain. The famous Holstentor Gate has a museum inside, which was fascinating to visit.

On Sunday, we went to church with the family we were staying with, Andreas helpfully translating for us. There I met a British Python programmer, which was fun. His wife is a social worker, which was fun for Terah.

Monday it was time to get on the train to Berlin. We again walked through a cold and rainy city to the Hauptbahnhof, ready to head to Berlin. There we got on a train to Hamburg, then an ICE train to Berlin. Despite having just a few minutes for a connection in Hamburg, it all went perfectly smoothly. The train left Leipzig about 10 seconds late — the clock inside turned over to the minute, then the doors closed and we were off. Impressive.

Note: the rest of my photos from Lübeck are available on Flickr.