Goats in the Gürtel

Cologne is surrounded by a ring of parks called Die Grüngürtel (the green belt), which is lovely for afternoon walks. Over the weekend, we headed to the southernmost part (the Stadtwald, or city forest) to enjoy the fall leaves and to visit one of my favorite places in the Gürtel:  The Lindenthaler Tierpark

source

The park has been around since the early 1900s, at first filled only with tame Damhirsche (fallow deer), but now also with a bunch of goats, fowl (ducks, swans, turkeys, geese, chickens, and guineas), cows, and donkeys. This time we met some baby burros...

the ears!

I just can't get over those ears!

Some chickens...

we loved the contrast between the big, fluffy Brahmas and the long-legged Kraienköppe!

Of course goats...

And last, but not least, Highland cows...

feeding cows by hand is slimy, but fun :)

Entry to the park is free and a box of animal food is only 50 cents, so it's the perfect place to stop by on a weekend. There are always little kids running around, an icecream cone in one hand and goat food in the other. That and ears like this never fail to make me smile!

A Working Vacation in Vienna

It's not very often that J and I spend more than 2 nights at a place on a trip--we usually have a tightly packed agenda in order to do and see as much as possible. For this trip, however, J mostly needed to access materials in the Austrian National Library (and possibly the archive), so we rented an apartment on Kolschitzkygasse and called it home for 6 nights.

many buildings on our street were social housing complexes--it's an interesting system

We started out at the National Library, which is housed in the Imperial Hofburg Palace. Outside, it's quite impressive! We found the quality of the catalog and the service to be much less impressive, but it was pretty to look at. Mostly, it's the go-to study spot for college students in Vienna. Nevertheless, we spent about a good portion of the trip working in the library.

the entry to the Austrian national library...not intimidating at all :)

The Beers of Germany

It seems incredible that I have been writing about our adventures in Germany for 10 months (!) already, and I have yet to write much about beer. Every American knows that Germans love their beer, and one of the first things people think of when they think of Germany is Oktoberfest, the annual beer festival held in Munich. We didn't go to Oktoberfest (which is actually held in September) because it was quite expensive, but we have done our best to sample as many different beers as possible. Our taste tests aren't comprehensive, by far, but we're working on it :)

enjoying Kölsch with schnitzel at Oma Kleinman's

marks on the coaster track your drinks (img source)

First, Kölsch (said more like 'kohlsch' and not like 'koolsch'), the beer of Cologne and much of the Rhineland. When you go to a bar in Cologne, you can either get Kölsch or (maybe) Bitburger. But nothing else, unless you're at (a) a tourist bar like the Bier "Museum" or (b) a specialty shop like Cafe Eichhörnchen (Belgian beer, chocolate, and coffee). Kölsch is always served in tall, slim 0.2 or 0.3 liter glasses, and the waiter tracks your beers by making slashes on the Bierdeckel (coaster). I particularly like that the glasses are so small--sometimes I just want a taste, not a huge brewski! And it's not a Kölsch unless it's brewed within the Cologne city limits.

Altbier in Düsseldorf

Germany is highly regional when it comes to beer, so you will never see Kölsch served in a Kneipe (aka, pub) in Düsseldorf, though it's only 40km north. Instead, all the pubs serve Altbier, the Düsseldorfer favorite. We especially enjoyed our visit to the charming and cozy Füchschen Brauhaus.

Fruit and Fountains in Rome

When we visited Rome this past August, it was hot. Standing in the shade and drinking cool water made all the difference, so we spent a good deal of time hopping between shady spots and looking for cool snacks. Fortunately, Rome had an incredible number of gurgling public fountains, so all you needed was a water bottle. The fountains were unlike any I have ever seen before, though--unlike the utilitarian 'bubblers' in the US, the fountains in Rome were often decorative and always located outside. And almost every one of them was stone cold and perfect for a hot day.

I didn't get too many pictures of the fountains, unfortunately, but we never had to worry about running out of water! Around the Forum, some of the fountains had long lines as other tourists like ourselves tried to cool off. We even came across some pups that had figured out the system!

On our way from the apartment to the center of the city, we walked through Porta Giovanni, where the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran and a handy Metro stop are located. On our way there were two very tasty stops: The first, a perfect cappuccino to go, and the second, a fresh fruit stand owned by a very nice Bangladeshi guy named Paolo (in Italian...unfortunately, his Bengali name has slipped my mind).

interactive map

We bought fruit there every day in Rome, and I think we were probably his best customers. When I stopped by on our way out on the last day, he asked after my mom and sister, and then we got to talking a bit. He has owned and run the fruit stand for the past 14 years! The fruit was really good, too. Everything I had (watermelon, fresh coconut, melons, apricots) was perfectly ripe. The fountains and that fruit stand were two of my favorite everyday things in Rome :)

J and I are in Austria (and perhaps Hungary) at the moment as we're visiting archives and libraries, while squeezing in some touring. More soon!

Word of the Week: spachteln

As in, to spackle or fill in a hole. Such as the hole in our bathroom wall.

The apartment directly above us is undergoing a complete renovation, including ripping out all the flooring and walls and replacing all the pipes. They needed to make a hole in our wall to do something to the water pipes for the apartment above, so we've been living with a hole in the bathroom wall for the past few weeks. Finally, they began to spachteln and it's so nice not to feel like there is a huge peep hole into our most private room!

Oh, they also accidentally made a hole in the living room ceiling while drilling into the above apartment's floor, so that's being (slowly) fixed, too. I sadly did not get a photo of the chaos of plaster that rained down, but I'm sure you can imagine. I'm looking forward to having a clean, orderly apartment again soon!

A German Food Tradition

These little guys began appearing in bakeries just about a week ago. I thought they were so cute that I picked one up.

It turns out that the Weckmann is an old Advent tradition, a gift for Catholic children during the feast of St. Martin on November 11. Today, they're sold all throughout the Advent season (and quite a bit before, much like Christmas music hits the stores a good month before the actual date). Apparently, the figures originally held crosses, but it gradually morphed in to a pipe. Sadly, this guy was cuter than he tasted, but I still enjoyed learning about another German food tradition!

Word of the Week: das Tor

The German word, das Tor, refers to several things. Firstly, a gate.

clockwise from left: Rödertor in Rothenburg ob der Tauber; castle gate in Cochem, the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin,
and an old gate into Bacharach

Secondly, das Tor refers to a soccer goal.

source

There are some jokes about this dual meaning, but it (sort of) makes sense.

source

We finally went to a Bundesliga soccer (aka, Fußball) game the other day. We watched Bayer Leverkusen (owned by the Bayer aspirin company) beat Hannover 96, 2:0. Going to a big soccer game has been on our 'must do' list, and we had a great time. My favorite part was watching the home team super-fan section led by the Ultras.

huge flags, an incredible giant banner (aka, tifo), and perfectly synchronized chants (click for a better view)

Another fun tradition: when the home team players are announced at the beginning, the announcer says only the first name and the fans yell the last name. And when someone on the home team makes a goal, the entire stadium chants his last name! I wonder how the player feels when he hears 25,000 people chanting his name?

My next goal is to get to an FC Köln game--I want to see the mascot, Hennes the Goat, in person!

P.S. This video made me laugh, and I bet you'll get the joke, too :)

Ausflug: Tuchfabrik Müller, Euskirchen

While J was away at a conference a few weeks ago, I decided to check out one of the museums along the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail (Route der Industriekultur). The trail includes a drop forge, paper mill, textile mills, zinc factory, coal mines, and other types of factories in the region. The Tuchfabrik Müller (Müller's Woolen Mill) is an early 20th century mill, which processed the raw wool and made beautiful fabric for uniforms. It originally was a paper mill, but the Müller family bought it in 1894 and produced fabric up until the 1960s. In the 1980s, it was bought by the government and restored, and now it's a really wonderful museum.

The mill is only an hour train ride from our apartment, so it was a perfect day trip. Group tours are the only way to see the it, so I planned my arrival to coincide with the 4pm tour. Before it began, I read an English translation of the tour, which was really helpful for technical words such as Krempelei (carding) and Nassappretur (washing and finishing the fabric). The tour was conducted in German, but I caught about 80% of it and really enjoyed it. Aside from the translation, the other reason I understood so much of the tour is that every single room had working machines and demonstrations!

The tour began in the steam-engine (Dampfmachine) room, with huge coal furnaces and a web of belts connecting the engine to machines throughout the building. It smelled just like my Grandpa Lewis's shop, a mix of old wood, grease, and dust (in other words, wonderful). Later, we saw a model of the entire mill's power transmission system, which showed the intricate connections of the machines' belts to the main steam engine. To turn machines on and off, the belts were slipped onto a wheel connected to the main power, which caused the belts to turn and the machines to run. Such a clever system!

From there, we saw the willowing room, where the wool is taken out of bales and run through a machine with big rollers of teeth -- rough wool goes in and light fluffy wool comes out of the overhead shoot like snow. The German word for this room is Wolferei, which I suppose refers to all those teeth in the machine!

We walked past belt-powered washing machines made out of tree trunks and huge dying vats, with the dye recipe written on the door nearby.

The carding room (Krempelei) was next. Rollers covered in small, metal bristles were attached to a series of rotating wheels. The wool enters at the front and goes through these wheels, coming out as pillowy sheets that you can pull apart with your fingers like a layered buttermilk biscuit.

Once the wool is soft and carded, it's spun into yarn on long lines of spinning machines. From there, the spindles are attached to a clever contraption that in turn makes giant spools. Different colors of yarn are lined up to produce a particular pattern on the spool.

These huge spools are then brought over to the weaving machines (Webstühle), where the cloth is finally woven. This was one of my favorite demonstrations. Once the machines are loaded with huge spindles of wool, a heavy wood and metal shuttle loaded with more wool runs across the strands to weave the fabric. This video explains how it works, though these were mechanized looms without pedals or the 'flicker stick.' The shuttles travel very fast, and there were deep gauges all along the walls where the shuttles had come loose and smashed into the plaster! The noise was overpowering, and we only had half the machines running.

the loom on the left was making plaid fabric rather than stripes:
the red and white stripes were crossed by green yarn on the shuttle

I think I particularly enjoyed this museum because it was so beautiful, with the textures and colors of the well-worn wood, metal, leather, and wool in every room, and the smells of the machines bringing back memories of cold afternoons in Pa's shop. I also loved seeing the machines run. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the ingenuity of machines during the Industrial Revolution as well as the sheer volume of fabric that must have come out of the Manchester mills around the same time!