Seeing Germany

Easter week vacation, we visited Nürnberg, Berlin and Tübingen.

We were so happy to be with Daniela and the Kempf family in Nürnberg. Daniela was another one of our loving au pairs, whose family visited us in Denver. They showed us a great time in Nürnberg, where they specifically organized kids friendly activities. We went to the Volkfest, the country fair, filled with amazing rides. From a parents point of view, I appreciated how relaxed the rides were. They were safe but the workers didnt scream at the people to stand back all the time. We could walk all around the bumper cars and bubble rides to take pics of our kids laughing. The food was homemade, fresh and delicous. Totally different feeling than in the states. We also saw the huge, famous Nürnberg zoo, which has more space for the animals, than the Denver Zoo.

Here we are constantly surrounded by history. We visited the Nürnberg "Reichsparteitagsgelaende", the NS party grounds, where Hitler stood and hystericaly screamed at huge audiences. We saw the "Dokumentationszentrum" for the Nuremberg trials, where the documents from the Nürnberg process or trials are kept. The WWII history can be hard to take but it is important to often revisit it in an effort to never repeat it.

Peter taught a 2-day endoscopic spine course to Tübingen, one of the oldest University cities in Germany, close to Stuttgart. It is a very beautiful medieval town with a large, large number of students. Definitely worth a trip by itself!

While Peter was in Tübingen, I took the kids by train to explore Berlin. We have been in Germany long enough that I saw how cosmopolitan Berlin is with its ethnically diverse restaurants. However, comparing Berlin to the other cosmopolitan cities of the world like Amsterdam and New York, Berlin is very caucasian. Berlin is lively and fun. Berlin, since it has been reconstructed city, it is thoughtfully planned out so history, specifically WWII, doesn't repeat. All the embassies are lined up next to each other within one district in order to promote open communication. The museums are located on museum island and will soon be connected by an underground tunnel. Berlin is artistically pleasing to the eye and tastefully displays its historical sites . Liebeskind designed the powerful building of the Jewish Museum to evoke the feeling of the history of the Jews in Germany. Checkpoint Charlie, where the US, the allies and diplomats crossed into East Germany, still stands. The Germans crossing into the east where thoroughly searched at another checkpoint on Friedrichstrasse. We snapped a photo of Annika in front of her birthday poster, March 18, a very important day in 1848 because it was the first time students, workers and revolutionaries banded together to protest against monarchs. For us today, the Brandenburg gate represents freedom from dictators and repression, and represents a gate to the free world.

We also spent the day with my good friend, Rumi and Paul Gant's son, Nigel. We had a blast in the markt, that looks like the Kriskindmarkt. We also had a nice discussion in the holocaust memorial which Peter Eisenmann designed to show how in WWII mass graves (symbolized by the huge smooth grave stone structures) were used and a systematic (symbolized by the grid) method of getting its victims in the graves was applied.

Hansi: Berlin was too smoky.
Tobi: I thought that the Berlin wall would be taller and thicker.
Gia: Berlin is a very beautiful city and it taught me a lot about the Holocaust.
Annika: Berlin has the very same public transportation system as Munich, the Deutsche Bahn. So, I feel very comfortable navigating the trains, subways,etc.

We truly had fun exploring new places together!

Pfingsferien: Tuscana, Italy - Florence and Pisa

After Venice, we traveled to Bologna and enjoyed one of the stereotypical never ending lunch with the table loaded with many wine bottles and 4 courses of mouth-watering exquisite food. We had a lovely few days playing in Tuscany. Everyday Peter and I enjoyed a lovely mountain bike ride. It was fun to get a little lost together in the backroads of Tuscany. We biked in the rain, past all the Mary and child. In Bavaria, there are crucifixes everywhere and in Tuscany there are Mary with child instead.

Sightseeing around Murnau

We saved our "sightseeing tours" for the time when Natalie and Scott Crase visited us from Denver, including Dachau, Schloss Neuschwanstein, Munich and Justin Bieber.

On a cold, grey day, also first day of Pesach, we visited Dachau. Hitler opened Dachau, shortly after he became the Führer in 1933. Dachau was the first concentration camp and he modelled subsequent camps after Dachau. It was horrible to see how every detail of the camp was designed to systematically dehumanize the prisoners and strip them of their dignity in a cruel manner. From the minute the prisoners entered into its heavy iron gates, they publically stripped and they were given one thin, ill fitting striped outfit with a star or colored triangle, according to their religion, political conviction or sexual orientation. From the second that the prisoners woke up from their wooden bunks or coops, until they returned to their pen-like wooden bunk beds, they were abused. In the morning, they had to stand at attention for at least one hour and sometimes several hours for daily roll call. If they moved, they would be publically tortured. Then for the rest of the day they were forced to work at hard labor jobs, the women worked in the camp brothels, and given little to no food. They had only public metal toilets out in the open. Seeing all the instruments the Nazis used nauseated us. Germany, unlike many other countries which have tortured and killed in the name of "racial cleansing", has done a good job of showing all the gruesome details and constructing memorials so that the holocaust may never repeat. Unfortunately there are many "holocausts" today where people are dehumanized and killed only because of their personal beliefs.

Fortunately, Schloss Neuschwanstein was more uplifting. King Ludwig II was also crazy, but he only built ridiculously ostentatious castles that bankrupted the Kingdom of Bavaria. Ironically, they are now some of Bavaria's most popular tourist sites. It took King Ludwig II 17 years to build this castle. He lived in it only 177 days before he mysteriously died (taken out of his bed and found dead, along with his psychiatrist, in a knee deep pool). He spared no luxurious details and made one of the first kitchens in the 1860s to have a dumb-waiter. We had fun running around the grounds in a snow storm. Peter, Scott, Natalie, Gia and Annika easily crossed the pedestrian suspension bridge that spanned an impressive and deep canyon. The kids liked seeing the castle that Disney uses in their logo.

What would a vacation be without Justin Bieber? Since Justin Bieber performed in München during our week together, Scott and I took Annika, Gia and Natalie to the Olympic Hall for the show. The three girls went to and hung out in München all day before Scott and I met them in the city center. They enjoyed the independence that German kids experience in their early teens because of Germany's fabulous public transportation system.

All in all, we had a week full of tourist sites, local color and, most important, smiles.