Update 11-25-07
Well, it's barely been a month since I last wrote & only one month into the New Year (for you fellow pagans), but rest assured that all is well. I'm not dead, or starving. Currently, I'm staying with some friends in Otterberg, Germany. Otterberg is not a large town, though I will give it credit for having a bus that comes through town several times per day - except of course on Sundays, when it doesn't run at all. It is a small village situated in Southwest Germany, the Rheinland-Pfalz area; not far from Kaiserslautern & Rammstein Air Force Base, as well as a fairly short train ride to Frankfurt.
We arrived in Frankfurt - via rideshare with a Dutch man named KuKu - from Amsterdam on the 9th. It decided to get cold that day, of course; it had been unseasonably warm all through Northwestern Europe, and even, I was told, Northeastern Europe. The day of our departure, however, it rained on & off all day, and was actually quite chilly.
Backtracking to the beginning of the month, I have to say that Dublin is great. It's a mad sort of place, all sorts of people from all over the world, milling through the streets. It reminded me of New York a bit: the way no one waits for the walk signal, the impossibility of walking a straight line on the sidewalk, cars, buses & trolleys barrelling down the street, etc. Our best find, hands down, was a pub called Grainger. It may be the best (& only) authentic Irish pub in Dublin (I'm told I need to go to the countryside in order to find the really good pubs).
We saw the Book of Kells. Beautiful work. I enjoyed the information about how each aspect of the calligraphic process corresponded to the philosophy of the monks who wrote it. Then, on your way out, there's a hall lined with busts of important literary figures & thinkers in front of floor to ceiling aisles of books. My jaw dropped when I saw it. And, oh the smell of old books. I just stood there for a moment, breathing it in. You know the one. Of course, it's probably mildew or something else that hates my immune system, but I can't help it. Old Books smell great.
We made it through the first weekend of November when we realized we hadn't done enough planning for the England part. Originally, we were going to spend Guy Fawkes Day in Liverpool, but it was far more expensive just getting there than we had really thought. It wasn't so much the expense, as the expense of not planning ahead. So we scrapped the Channel hops, bought plane tickets to Amsterdam, and after some annoyances, we arrived on the continent Monday the 5th. Amsterdam is nice, more laid back than Dublin, although that should not imply that Dublin was stressed out. Just containing a sort of exuberance, like going sledding in the snow or some such nonsense.
The atmosphere of Amsterdam is really cool. The Dutch language, so you know, is not THAT related to German, or at least not enough related to the paltry bit of German I'd known up to that point, but people are friendly, and acknowledge you when you try, sometimes going as far as to grab a complete stranger off the street to help you when they can't. Also, the people of Amsterdam bike everywhere. There's bike paths along the roads & sidewalks in red. Remember that. Red. Bikes. Barrelling towards you. From almost every direction. Yep.
The Rijksmuseum is nice. There was a large scale model of a ship from the Sail Days of the high seas, and I got to see Rembrandt's "Jeremiah lamenting the detruction of Jerusalem". It's worth a look if you're in town, although I'm not sure I would travel to Amsterdam specifically for that. Actually, the best part of the museum is probably the outside of it. The back side is ornate, and there's a garden & arches in the front that are worth a look.
After recharging our batteries for a couple of days, we rode to Frankfurt with KuKu, and stayed the night in a hostel run by an older German woman in a smaller town outside Frankfurt. Then we rode through some of the most beautiful countryside to get to Otterberg.
I've got to tell you, if you're looking for picturesque, old European villages with coffee shops, bakeries, vegetable markets & butcher shops in beautiful old buildings...well, you should really come in the spring, because damn. It's cold. It's actually sleeting as we speak. But that's the funny thing. Other than a couple sorta bad spots, Late Autumn is beautiful here. We're in a smallish mountain/valley village, and it's absolutely, freakin' beautiful. Better than I ever imagined. It's got the whole winding cobblestone street thing happening, there's all that Gothic architecture (there's an absolutely monolithic cathedral here that nearly sickens me with it's grace), a hillside cemetery that loves the late afternoon sun, and forrests...oh, the forrests. Our host, Christian, Ryan & I went for a walk last Saturday in the late afternoon. We tried to get lost several times, but alas, we managed to wend our way back home with the rising half moon to guide our way. And contrary to what some may think, this weather looks great on Otterberg. [I'm getting somewhat used to it, too, which makes me happy. May I just say that my down jacket was one of the best investments I ever made.]
Christian & Tonja, by the way, are consummate hosts. They've been so gracious to open their home, not just to Ryan whom Tonja has known for most of her life, but Jaya & myself. Jaya headed on down the road this weekend to begin wintering in Italy, and depending on how the next few steps I'm taking pan out, I may join him before long, or some other place of a more southerly location.
I've been working on my writing & photography, and am excited to see where that may lead. I'm finally starting to see some results from my writing and hope to get some more things out shortly. Getting photography going is tricky, but I'm making some headway. It's a slow process & there's much to do, but as Jaya mentioned the other day, "just one thing at a time". I've never been good at that. I want it all done now, but the doing still needs to happen. And that takes time. And all that time I was bitching about not having? Well, I have it now. It comes at a price, but it's mine. And I find myself in a constant state of wonder at that. So much so, that I sometimes scarcely know where to begin. The wireless signal is terrible, though, so it's taking me a little more time to do certain things. I'm prepping for the next step down the road, too. I'm thinking about staying here for another month, seeing some of Germany & maybe hitting Prague for a couple of days to see the Mucha museum. Ever since I studied Sarah Bernhardt, I've been a sucker for his work. After Christmas, though, I hope to be much further south.
I'm working on German quite a bit more. It's amazing how useless all that study can be when your reaction for every sentence spoken to you is of a somewhat deer-in-the-headlights quality. Yet I muddle through, and am actually picking up quite a bit. I don't expect to be fluent by the time I leave here, but I may have a good working base.
Other than that, things are pretty quiet here in Otterberg. And that suits me just fine.
