Luxembourg - July 2008

On Saturday July 19th Pam and I drove to Luxembourg for the weekend. Luxembourg is about a two hour drive from Heidelberg. It is a constitutional monarchy and in every business there are pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg. (I’d recommend reading about Luxembourg in Wikipedia.com)
The site for the city of Luxembourg started out as a Roman fort and the location was chosen because of the its ability to be defended. It is on a rocky outcropping with gorges descending on either side. The town of Luxembourg grew at the base of the Fort/Castle and a wall was built around most of the town for protection. Most of the new town is on the plateau on either side of gorges built all around the castle and above the old town. The effect is very dramatic walking when above looking down at the old town or looking up from the old town at the Castle and walls.
On Saturday night there was a Jazz festival in the old town. We left our hotel at around 10pm (22:00) and walked over and down to the old town. It was not hard to find the way as you really just needed to follow the crowd and then follow the music. The walls of the gorge funneled the sound up and from above you heard a cacophony of sound emanating from the multiple stages and the crowd noise.
Down in the old town it was crazy. Crowds of people, food vendors and the stages set up for bands. There were between 7 and 10 different festival stages set up as well as several bars that had their own entertainment and several amateur groups who were just walking around performing. It was a great crowd and excellent music.
We got back to our hotel room pretty late and slept in a bit Sunday morning. With our room, we also got breakfast at Le Bec Fin. After breakfast we checked out and drove to Vianden. Vianden is a small town on the border with Saarland, Germany. The drive from Luxembourg City to Vianden was mostly on small roads and was exceptional as the countryside of Luxembourg is a beautiful.
Vianden is built on a mountain with a beautifully restored castle at the top. It is a quaint little town with a river running through the town at the base of the mountain. There is an amazing view from the top of the castle. For you history buffs, the family that built the castle is descended from the same family as William of Orange.
Pam and I loved Luxembourg, it is a beautiful country and the people are very friendly. Most of the people speak 4 to 5 languages including English. The one strange thing that Pam noticed is the proliferation of Chinese restaurants and the fact that we saw no Chinese people on the streets.

The Klings

The Klings, Mom and Pat Kling worked together at Girard Bank, were in Europe for their annual trip to Europe. Charlie Kling’s family is from the Heidelberg area and he has cousins that live in Schriesheim which is just up the street from us. We planned on having dinner with Pat and Charlie on Saturday July 5th.
After arriving at our house, we chatted for a short time and then we walked down the street to the Italian restaurant we enjoy. Charlie speaks fluent Italian (and German and he is a retired Latin teacher) and the waiter is from Italy and they struck up a conversation immediately in Italian. We enjoy this restaurant because the food is excellent and on our second visit , the waiter recognized us and remembered what we wanted.
It was a beautiful night and we were sitting outside and we sat and chatted until well after 11pm. It was great to see Pat and Charlie (such nice people!) even if it was only for a few hours.

Sam's Visit - Part 3

On Monday evening we arrived home from Barcelona.
Tuesday was extremely hot (for Germany) and for the most part we just hung out. Wednesday was also warm and Sam slept in. We went into Mannheim again for lunch at Maredo (Air conditioning). After lunch we went to a Go-Kart track in Mannheim. I knew that this was not going to be the same kind of carts we have driven in Wildwood, first of all, the track is over .5 mile long. We purchased 30 mintues and we had 10 minutes of safety instruction before starting. We got in the cars and headed out on the track. These cars are fast, top speed being nearly 40MPH.
Sam handled herself pretty well with these cars. She had me pass her so that she could chase me. I drove fast enough to keep in front of her, but slow enough so that she had something to chase and keep it interesting. After about 10 minutes they brought us in to see if we needed a break…..we decided to keep going. Another 10 minutes or so went by and we were stopped again. This time other drivers were starting also. We got something to drink while they went through their safety speech. There were 5 of us on the track. Driving these carts is a lot of work, the turns are tight and the speeds are relatively high. My forearms and shoulders were getting fatigued and I was soaked in sweat. I saw Sam pull off into the pit lane and they bought us all in as there were other drivers joining again. They told me that Sam was taking a break. It seemed like a long time we had been out on the track (I do not wear a watch) and I asked how much more time we had and they told me that a racing club starts in 90 minutes and we had until then. Well…with Sam being already on a break, I decided to get out take a break also. After speaking with Sam, we decided to just head home, we were both a pretty tired. Her hands were tired and she did not feel safe driving anymore. We both really enjoyed ourselves.
Thursday morning Sam packed her things and we headed north up the A5 to Frankfurt to the airport. Sam had a great time in Germany with us. As much as she was looking forward to going home and seeing her Nana, she was a little sad about leaving us.

Sam's Visit - Part 2 - Barcelona

Thursday morning, Sam, Pam and I flew to Barcelona for a long weekend. We flew into Girona, Spain and took the bus directly into Barcelona. On the ride in it was interesting to see the country side.
Our hotel, the Pere IV, is a 5 or 6 blocks from the beach and just north of the old town and it was very nice. We all commented how it was an interesting part of town for a hotel. It was pretty industrial, but it did look like it was being developed as there was considerable construction going on.
After checking in the first thing we did was to check out the beach. Sam had never seen the Med before. I was a little concerned about what the beach looked like because it is in a city, but was pleasantly surprised. The water was clear blue and while there were many people there, it was not jammed with people. We walked along the beach to the Marina and decided to have a snack as we were all hungry. I had told Samantha about eating traditional Tapas style food in Spain and she liked it. Sam was very good about trying all sorts of new foods. She would have had more, but we were concerned about her shellfish allergies and the last thing we wanted to do was spend a day in the hospital with her.
It was really hot in the middle of the day, and after our snack we walked back to the hotel for another Spanish tradition, a Siesta.
In the early evening we headed back out. The Subway was just down the street and we took the subway over to the edge of the old town. It was Thursday night and the streets were packed with people. We wandered down Portal De l’Angel which is a wide and Pedestrian only street with shops and we eventually made it over to La Rambla which is the heart of Barcelona night life and shopping. Wednesday night was also the Semi-final match of the 2008 Euro Fußbol championship between Spain and Turkey. We found a nice Tapas Bar showing the game and rooted for Spain. We wanted the final game to between Germany and Spain on Sunday night.
Thursday we went to see the Familia Sagrada, an unfinished cathedral designed by Gaudi. Construction started in 1882 and continues today. Gaudi’s vision of the cathedral is amazing and very modern with interesting lines. From the side we entered, we could not tell how incomplete it was, but inside was filled with scaffolding and incomplete walls. We also went up one of the towers where we could see the incomplete domes. All of the work is now being paid for by admission fees to the cathedral. This would be an interesting place to travel back to in 10 years to see how construction has progressed.
We walked around Barcelona over the next two days, found a couple food markets which were just amazing, filled with Seafood, produce and meats. We found parts of Barcelona that were just very beautiful.
We also visited the Barcelona Cathedral, which is quite a contrast to the Sagrada Familia, Santa Eulia, which is a Gothic cathedral started in the 13th century and completed in the 15th century. Where the Sagrada is light and airy, the Eulia is dark and brooding.
Sunday morning we went to the Picasso Museum. The museum is set up to frame his life and his art, so that you see his talent and style develop over the years, from traditional portraits to his cubism. He was an amazing talent. Samantha knew very little about Picasso. In the first room I told her to really look at the art, that later it will be entirely different. Several rooms later, she was a room in ahead of me and came back to tell me how different the art got. This was his blue period. I told her, just wait…it gets even more different. I think she enjoyed the museum. She commented on the way out that she was surprised that such an important museum should be in an area that is better kept.
After lunch we headed to the beach. Again the beach was crowded but not jammed. The water was clear and blue and cool but not cold. Spent time in the water and people watched. People watching is something that we all enjoy doing.
That night was the Euro2008 Championship game between Spain and Germany and for dinner that Sunday night we returned to the Tapas bar we went to on Thursday night to watch the game. Germany lost 1-0. They did not play well and were lucky to lose be that small a margin.
On Monday morning, we checked out of the hotel early, took a taxi to the bus station and headed home.

Samantha's Visit June 2008

My niece Samantha came for a two week visit. Everyone concerned would say that it was a successful trip. Mom got to travel and visit friends, Pam, Sam and I got to see Barcelona and Sam found a new passion, fußbol.
Samantha arrived on Sunday June 22nd. She came out of the customs door escorted by 2 US Air employees. Because Samantha was an unescorted minor, Mom had purchased the ability to see her off at the gate in Philadelphia and the escort in Frankfurt. I feel that Sam could have managed on her own, but there is peace of mind knowing she was getting some help.
Sam is competitive and she wants to be able to visit as many countries as possible. She has already been to Italy and Germany and traveled through Switzerland (transferred planes). On this trip she was going to accumulate two more countries, France and Spain.
On Tuesday Sam and I drove to Strasbourg, France. Strasbourg is about a 90 minute drive down the Rhein Valley from Heidelberg. Strasbourg is built along the Ile River and the old town is bordered by the river on one side and a canal on the other, effectively making the old town of Strasbourg an Island.
Sam is not the most talkative person in the morning (but not difficult to get moving either) so she was pretty quiet in the car on the way down. We made it to Strasbourg in about 75 minutes or so. Driving across the border into France is completely uneventful. On the German side of the Rhein there are no remants left of the passort control and on the France side there is just the islands that the booths used to sit and a Welcome center.
I followed signs and the cathedral spir to the old part of town, parked the car and we walked overand through the old town to the Cathedral. By this time it was lunch time and we were both pretty hungry. We ate at a sidewalk café near the cathedral.
After lunch we walked around the corner to the Cathedral. I had taken Sam to the Cathedral in Heidelberg so she would have something to compare Strasbourg against. The Strasbourg Cathedral is of a completely different architectural style and much more ornate and a whole lot larger, it was the tallest building in Europe when it was built and is still the 4th tallest church in the world. It also houses a very large Astronomical Clock.
From the church we walked over to the canal for a canal boat ride around the old town. We chose to take the enclosed air conditioned boat instead of the open air boat as it was warm. During the ride around the town you can listen to a narrative with a headset and choose your language. You also proceed through two locks, one up and one down. Samantha had never been through or seen a canal lock working and I explained how it worked. Then second part of the trip is past the old town and down the Ile River to the EU Parliament Building. It is a beautiful glass and metal building.
Wednesday was very hot and very humid! Of course it always seems hotter when you depend on fans to keep cool and not air conditioning. Sam and I took the #5 Straßebahn to Mannheim. Samantha said that Mannheim felt more like a city to her. It has mostly modern buildings. During WW2 Mannheim was a major manufacturing center and was totally destroyed by Allied Bombing. Heidelberg on the other hand is half the size of Mannheim and was not much of a manufacturing center so it was virtually untouched by the war.
After walking around and doing a little shopping, Sam and I were in quest of a restaurant. Not just any restaurant, it had to have Schnitzel and, more importantly, it needed to have air conditioning. It was a hot quest but we succeeded. The restaurant Maredo looks and sounds like it should be a Mexican restaurant, but not by American standards. We walked in and were hit by a nice blast of cold, American air conditioning.
While we were eating, it had started raining. We paid the bill and got to the front door where about 5 people were watching the water flow down the street like a small river. We waited for the rain to slow, while I worried about whether the windows were closed at home. The rain slowed and we walked to the straßbahn and went home.
Thursday we left for Barcelona in part 2.

Steve's Visit

Pam’s father, Steve came for a visit in May and arrived on Friday May 9. This coincided with a party for Christine Waesle who had returned to Heidelberg from Singapore to defend her Doctoral thesis. That evening we invited a bunch of Christine’s friends and SAP Colleagues over for a little party. We had about 15 people over for the party.
Having just arrived that morning, Sep was obviously not staying up very late and he went to bed at about 10 that evening. I felt a little bad about that as we started up with the Wii about that time and it went from being just a nice quiet chatty party, to being a little louder with a good deal of laughter (see pix).
Saturday we drove along the Neckar to Dilsberg where there are several castles. The Castles were built at different times and are on different hill tops and there is a trail that you can walk to each of them. We walked to three of the castles but not the forth which is the furthest away. One castle is in good condition and is used for catering for weddings and other events. After the castle walk, we went down along the River in Neckarsteinach. We sat along the Neckar and had a drink and snack.
Sunday morning we did our usual shopping routine at the Saturday Market at the Tiefburg. After shopping we drove over to Bad Durkheim where there was supposed to be a wine festival. The festival turned out to be a one winery festival. We stayed and had a glass of wine and left. Being Sunday, there was not much open but we knew about another festival in a town nearby , Moßbach, so we drove over there. This was more of a food festival than a wine festival. It was warm and sunny and we walked around and checked out the many booths, got something to eat. It was very pleasant and excellent people watching.
Monday was a holiday in Baden-Württemberg and Pam had the day off. It also means that nothing is going to be open, but there was a medieval festival in Weinheim, a town about 10 miles north of Heidelberg and we decided to check it out. We parked the car and walked to the Hauptstrasse in Weinheim and had lunch first. We sat outside and ate in the sun and people watched while eating.
The Fesitval was located on the grounds of the castle. There was a troupe of period dancers there, and we watched the end of their performance. There were also demonstrations of period craftsmanship, blacksmithing, carpentry, bread baking and the like. It was not quite what we expected, but it was interesting. This kind of festival seems to bring out a lot of interesting people. Many were people like us, tourists checking it out, some were young families with children and then there were the people who dressed up for a very special occasion. Some of the people were dressed in period costumes (there were booths where you could purchase everything you need from hats to shoes). The second type of people were Goths, lots of dark hair, black eyeliner, black lipstick and piercings.
We stayed at the festival for little more than an hour and then went back to the car. We decided to drive up to a castle we had seen on the hill above Weinheim, Wachenburg. We did not know how to get there and we did not know what the place was called, so we drove in the general direction and completely missed it. On the second try, we made it up there, parked the car and then walked the rest of the way up the hill. Wachenburg was built as a convent and a school and now has a restaurant and an excellent view of the Rhein Valley.

On Monday morning arrived and time for Steve to head home. We loaded up the car and I drove him Frankfurt.

Our visit to Amsterdam

The weekend of April 11th Pam and I went to Amsterdam. We were traveling with Melissa, an SAP colleague from the US also living in the Heidelberg area. We were meeting Pam Levine a former SAP colleague now working for Centacor and who was coming the for business but took advantage of the travel to spend the weekend there. Pam, Melissa and I drove to Frankfurt Airport and had a completely uneventful flight.
The Netherlands has an interesting topography. When coming into airports almost anywhere else you look down on fields and highways and roads and such, but what is striking about Amsterdam are the canals and the water. Dikes are clearly visible as well as the canals….and it is all very, very flat.
The airport in Amsterdam is very nice and very modern with great shopping. We took a taxi from the Airport to the hotel, The American Hotel. After checking in and getting to our room, Pam got a call from Pam, she was not going to be able to come, her trip had been canceled just that afternoon. She was supposed to be leaving at about the time she was calling.
We were all hungry and we all decided on sushi, we called for a taxi. We asked the driver for a recommendation and he took us to a very nice Japanese restaurant, it had it all, regular order of the menu Japanese, Hibachi made in front of you and Sushi. I have to say, the sushi was excellent, not a lot of variety, but the fish was fresh and tasty. By the time we finished dinner it was already getting pretty late, we took a cab back to the Hotel.
Saturday started a bit cool and rainy. None of us had ever been to Amsterdam and we had no idea what way to walk to get to anyplace we wanted to be. We crossed the canal and looked around, but it did not ‘feel’ right in that direction. We turned around and walked the other direction. After a very short walk we came to a Plaza and in a corner of the Plaza was a Sports bar that was advertising breakfast. We went in and it looked good, so we sat down. Pam and Melissa had these crepe like things with strawberries they had seen other diners eating and I had a breakfast of Eggs, Sausage, potatoes and coffee. It was all very good.
We did a lot of walking. Amsterdam is a beautiful city and very livable. The canals are the defining feature of Amsterdam. They are arranged in arcs around the center of the city and the streets on either side of the canals have the same name as the canal. Another defining feature of Amsterdam is the bicycles. There is a 4 story parking garage just for bicycles. Also, it is not uncommon to see two people on a bike, the passenger being seated behind the on a carry rack. At traffic lights the passenger would jump off and then jump back on after giving the driver a little push start. This is something you seldom see in Germany.
It turns out that we could easily have walked to the Sushi restaurant we had been to the night before. We walked by the Anne Frank house, but the line was quite long and we decided to wait until Sunday to stop there and to do it early before the line got too long.
After lunch we also walked through the red light district. It was both not as tacky as we expected and very sad. The smell of marijuana drifted out of the coffee shops as we walked by and as we walked down the main drag, you could see the women standing in the windows selling themselves. The openness that allows this kind of thing is refreshing, but at the same time it is pretty sad to see someone stoned out of their mind, nearly passed out or seeing someone who you suspect this is their lifestyle. And for the women in the window, is this a bottom for them? Do they really enjoy what they do? I would think that that there are some women for whom being a prostitute in that environment is a nice job. You have good healthcare and have a structure to work within and then there are those for who this is a last chance. They believe they do not have the skills or wherewithal to do anything else and this provides for them and their family.
Dinner Saturday evening was at an Indonesian restaurant. We sat upstairs. We had a nice view of the street and the apartments across the street as it was not that wide. None of us had ever eaten Indonesian food before and we decided to get a sampler platter which we all enjoyed. Our server was a guy in his early 20’s who was very affable and he told us quite a bit about his life and how he wound up in Amsterdam.
Sunday Pam and I went for breakfast and we went to the same sports bar for breakfast. We then went directly to the Anne Frank house, the day before it had a very long line which we were hoping to avoid this morning. There was a line when we got there, but not nearly has long as the day before. Having grown up hearing about Anne Frank and knowing that the house they hid in was a museum, I knew that it was something that I wanted to see, but it was not something that I felt like that I needed to see. So, I was happily surprised when I really enjoyed it. The presentation is well done and they give a good history of the time period.
After the visit to the house, Pam and I spent the rest of the day walking around Amsterdam, walking around in parts of Amsterdam which are more residential. The canals of Amsterdam are lined with house boats. Some of them are really quite elaborate, from what we could tell looking in from the outside.
After walking around for most of the day we collected our luggage and headed back to the airport to fly home. Amsterdam is a very nice city with a lot to offer both historically and culturally. It would definitely be a city that Pam and I could see living in.