I've been mighty lazy about blogging lately, and it's been really wonderful to have David taking over a bit! But now it's time for me to stop procrastinating and catch up a little too. We haven't done a lot of traveling in the last week, since it has been gray and rainy most of the time. But it has been a whole lot warmer (highs in the 50s!), which makes daily life more pleasant.
Sunday 1/13: Monschau and Maria Laach
We did have one sunny day a week ago Sunday, so we made a day trip west to Monschau. This is a quaint hillside village about an hour and a half away that our landlord has been insisting we visit ever since we got here. It was indeed very nice, located in the scenic Eifel National Forest and with lots of half-timbered houses overlooking a mountain river.
The downside is that its mountainside spot and narrow streets meant that much of it was actually in the shade, despite the nice weather. And it was very cold, with lots of frost on the ground in the shady spots. But we had a nice time wandering across bridges and hiking up to a ruin above the town. Here are a few highlights:
We were done with Monschau by mid-afternoon, so we decided to continue on to Maria Laach.
Maria Laach is a lakeside village about 30 min south of Bonn, with a big Romanesque church. The church is very old and impressive and has "important" Romanesque characteristics so it gets lots of mentions in my medieval architecture books. As a bonus, it's located on a large and beautiful lake. You would think "Laach" means lake, but it doesn't - confusingly, See is the German word for lake. So this is the Laacher See, or "Laach Lake."
As it was Sunday we had seen hardly any people out and about for most of the day, but these lakeside walking paths were absolutely swarming with people! We are continually impressed with the Germans' commitment to outdoor exercise. The paths near us always have people walking on them, many of them over 60, in all kinds of weather.
Sadly the sun had just gone down behind the trees by the time we got to the church. So the lighting was terrible for exterior photos, but we have firm plans to return as soon as the sun shows itself again.
Maria Laach has a great collection of interesting carved capitals and friezes around the entrance. I haven't done any research on this church yet, so I can only guess at their meaning - if anyone even knows!
Sat 1/19: Düsseldorf
The day before yesterday we drove 45 minutes north to do some shopping in Düsseldorf. I sure enjoyed riding in the rental BMW for the first time! It's so pretty and very comfy. The weather was still unseasonably warm, but it was ridiculously windy.
First we stopped at a photography store on the outskirts of town called Calumet (sounds like ointment, doesn't it?). They had less cameras than he'd hoped, but we both enjoyed looking at camera bags, big bright lights on stands (we should start bringing those into cathedrals with us!), glossy photo paper, and such.
Then we parked in a garage in the city center and spent a little while wandering around a mall (the Schadow Arkadien) that made us feel like we were back home in America.
While there we stopped at another photography store, which David fondly remembered from our visit in 2005. They were very well stocked and reasonably priced, and we bought a lens that we'd been considering and researching for a while. It has a 24-70mm range and is supposed to do well in dim light. We have yet to give it a good test in a dark church but it seems like a keeper so far.
We also did some window shopping out on the windy streets, had a quick stand-up lunch of a good fish sandwich and shrimp from Nordsee, and had a wonderful time browsing in a seriously cool store called Manufactum. The store's theme seemed to be cool modern stuff from foreign countries. There were stylish bicycles made in England, nifty office supplies from Belgium, soaps and floppy hats from France, wooden toys from Sweden... really fun stuff. They even had David's special Swedish hatchet he bought in England. I snapped a couple blurry photos with the little camera:
And last but certainly not least, we stopped by the American and British Foods Store! We found out about the store thanks to Google, and we never would have noticed it otherwise. It's marked by a small sign on a nondescript street a few blocks from the main center of Düsseldorf.
It was small but we found lots of great treasures, including more canned pumpkin, Campbells cream of mushroom soup, and cold cans of Dr Pepper and A&W Root Beer! Pretty darn thrilling.
The Galeria in Bonn
On our way back from Dusseldorf we made a quick trip into Bonn for some groceries. This was actually really fun, as the other day David had discovered a way to drive right into the heart of the city and park underneath the Galeria, one of the main department stores.
Like many such stores in Europe, the Galeria has a semi-fancy grocery store in its basement, and the parking garage leads right into it! It couldn't be easier and it is an awesome grocery store. We got some delicious ham from a nice man at the deli, some Orville Redenbacher's popcorn and taco shells from the little USA section, and checkout was super fast.
While David was paying the parking machine on our way out, I continued my snap-happy ways with the little camera.
The inside of the BMW. Note the little sticker on the dash that says "210" - that's notifying us that there's a limiter so we can't go faster than 210kph, which is 130mph! The Alfa had this sticker, too. I love that car makers have to prepare German drivers for disappointment that their car won't go over 130mph.
And here's another REALLY great thing we've recently begun to notice about Germany. Parking places for women in the rows closest to the door! It doesn't even seem that you need to be a mother, just a woman. Sweet. It's not clear yet whether it's sufficient to have a woman with you, similar to the rule for a handicapped person, or if she has to be driving. We'll have to investigate this further!
Another common sight are special parking places in convenient locations for Smart Cars. This one is right next to the exit of the parking garage.
TV and Politics
A few weeks ago David did some tweaking with our TV and we now have one English-language channel - CNN! We've been enjoying keeping up with the happenings back home and especially all the election stuff. It's so nice having an election where there's not a clear front-runner in the race and there's actually a few interesting candidates to watch.
And finally, Happy Martin Luther King day! I hope all of you back in the States got the day off work!