A city on the street

A most astonishing thing occurred.  One hundred year ago today, at 6am Germany declared war on Belgium.  At 8am Germany invaded Belgium.  A better commemorator than I would have woken up early and made sure that they were at the border by 8am, however, I don't think I could manage the 10km both ways given how much walking I've been doing.  So I'm going to see if I can get the car a little later and position myself just a little closer to the border.

So I prepared the previous post and went for some früsthück instead.  I finished breakfast at about 7:50 and felt like I wanted to at least be out and walking around for a bit, so I took a stroll around the neighborhood I'm staying in.  It's not a particularly fancy neighborhood, I would say working class.  It's also garbage day, so all the bags of rubbish were on the street and I could see the truck creeping along trying to make it not garbage day anymore.  Everything very ordinary, but I found some nice streets where I could reflect.

At one intersection I glanced in both direction and noticed there was mural painted on a wall a bit of the ways down the street.  I figured I might as well have a look.  And there it was.  I believe it's a mural of the history of Germany and the city of Aachen, from Roman times all the way to the second world war.  I believe it is a work in progress as there is more wall space and the beginning of shapes taking place after the last frame.  But on the corner, the first thing I see is this:

The war brings death to the people, and death of European Monarchy.
Also note as the mural transitions to the second world war, there is a commemoration of Kristallnacht, which
did see the city's synagogue destroyed.

I check the time and it's exactly 8am, the moment one hundred years ago when the war in the west began.  Chilling, but abundantly appropriate.  I did a terrible job of recording the other sections of the mural but here they are.

It's hard to see but on the far left hand side are Roman settlers.  You should be able to click through
on the images to see more detail.

The far left commemorates the city fire in 1656.  I believe next to it is a reference to the Peace of Aachen
which I think refers to what is known in English as the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.  Then the mural
shows the springs that Aachen was known for in the 18th century.  And of
course, Napoleon.

This frame is clearly Aachen during the second world war, when it became the first German city to
be captured by the allies (specifically, the US).

Crossed the line

One hundred years ago on this very hour, Germany invaded Belgium.  They crossed the frontier at many points, including a small town in a semi-independent and neutral region called Moreset, which is today properly part of Belgium.  The first town entered was Gemmenich.  Today I will walk to a place where the borders of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet.  There is a park called Vaalserberg, which is the highest point in the European Netherlands.  Then I will walk to Gemmenich.

The start of the war

One hundred years ago today, Germany declared war on France.  This come two days after she declared war on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary, which has been in a state of war since July 28th.  It's not clear to me why Germany declared war other than it expected war to happen in any case so went ahead with it.  She mumbled something to France about "aviators throwing bombs" at her and then opened fire.  Actually I just read an article from a couple of days ago that the French and Germans had already had a go at each other, but hardly the stuff that would lead to millions of war dead.  Needless to say the French never apologized for the imaginary aviators so war it was.

At the same time Germany invaded Luxembourg.  One might already be aware of how small a country Luxembourg is so it's not unreasonable to assume Germany had completed its invasion before it finished telling Luxembourg they were even coming.

War between France and Germany may be seen as a given, although diplomatic efforts to avoid conflict continued until the very end.  The real question that hung in the balance was what was the United Kingdom going to do during all this.  The United Kingdom itself wasn't too sure about this either and left the decision to Germany.  The UK might join the hostilities if Germany invaded Belgium or attacked the northern coast of France.

And so we come to little Albert sitting alone in his neutral realm.  It was only just yesterday that Germany announced its intentions to walk through Belgium, like so many field of poppy.  Today, Belgium would officially say... Well... You know what she would officially say.

And so to tomorrow.

A long day in Köln

Due to the particulars of international jet travel, yesterday turned out to be an extraordinarily long day, lasting from around 2:30am until 10:30pm.  I confess, I did have a small nap in the afternoon, but really it was so short I think it did neither good nor harm.  A long day in a good, walkable city, yes, that's what it was.  I like me cities, and Köln was a city with stuff to like.

I will first briefly comment on the relative sense of calm and order that one experiences in certain European.  The inside of my brain is a very hectic and confusing place and interfacing with a realm where things run on time and have purpose can do a lot to alleviate other, more anxious areas of my personal life.  Areas such as "Why hasn't my luggage arrived yet?" and "I cannot decide where to have lunch."  I'm not claiming any kind of superiority of orderly locales over the more free-flowing and spontaneous places on earth, just that sometimes it's nice when other people are taking care of parts of the world around you, even when it comes at the price of the entire pedestrian traffic waiting at a street crossing on a narrow, empty street for the light to turn green.

Look, it's our old friend the cathedral,
except this time, I can focus on it!
Early morning, before all those tourists
come out and spoil the view.

I decided to commence searching for früstück at around 7am.  No, I won't go in to the tedious details of what I ultimately found and I have no overly processed digital photos of it to share.  I will say that I was the only one awake and nothing was open yet.  So I walked around with the whole city to myself.  Even when busy the place feels peaceful, but when nobody is around it's even more so.  Having the place to myself made me feel like it was mine, so when later, the other people came out for their bier and sausage, I felt like I was the local.  Sure, a local who didn't speak the language nor know his away around, but that didn't matter to me much.  In fact, someone did at one point ask me for directions.  I sent her along somewhere and hope some day she will find her way back from it.

I soon learned that Köln is a right old city and has more history to it than I can ever possibly know.  Unfortunately, like all too many cities in Europe, particularly Germany, much of the city was destroyed in the last century.  I don't know if the bombardment of Köln was ever the right thing to do.  Was doing it helping to stop bad guys, or were those who were responsible trying to inflict a degree of punishment on the common people for their real or perceived misdeeds?  I'll leave these questions for military historians for the time being as we can all acknowledge that many of the things destroyed there belonged to all of humanity, and right or wrong it's saddening.  The destruction is present in all the remaining history.  Most of the things left were bravely rebuilt after the war.  I say it's brave given the scarcity that was omnipresent after the Second World War, and the courage required to commit what scant resources there were to rebuilding things that came from enormous wealth.

The historical monuments that stood out most to me were that there are what are known as The Twelve Romanesque Churches.  As I walked around the city (and I walked a lot) I kept discovering these churches wherever I went.  Quickly I began to start to look for them.  Finding them was like a little game.  I should have had a stamp booklet where I could put a sticker in a page each time I found one.

It is my pleasure to present to you
Great St. Martin and the streets of
Altstadt #2,304,563.

The first one I found was Great St. Martin.  It's hard to believe but so much of it has had to be rebuilt (see the "before" photo on the wikipedia page).  This is in an area of town called The Old City (North) or in local-speak Altstadt-Nord.  My hotel is right on the border between Altstadt-Nord and Altstadt-Süd (can anyone guess what Süd means?).  Good location if you plan to spend the day alternating between exploring the city and checking to see if your luggage has arrived.

Also in Altstadt-Nord are the plethora of museums and culture (excluding the chocolate and mustard museums), the giant Cathedral pictured above and loads and loads of Brauhauses, of which I shall remark later.

After finding a light früstück mit kaffee I needed to attend to luggage finding, but after, I headed off to the south, where I found out that the chocolate museum and the mustard museum were right across the road from each other!  The city could not have planned that one better.  Unfortunately, it was so early that everything was still closed.  So I kept on walking and started to discover another of landmarks that I could start collecting.  City gates!  It's easier to see all of them because there are three.  However, they are rather far apart from one another since they were actually things that sat on the outside of the city.

Oops, sorry, trying not to photo graph you
too.  Almost was run over by a truck.

The first one was called Severinstor.  I happened upon it when I was actually began searching for the legendary German cuisine known as Turkish kabobs for an early lunch (früstück was kind of small).  Then I went and found the kabob.  Now, the kabob is a special thing, from my England days.  One thing that Europe has all over the US no matter where you go is kabobs.  In fact, the only really place I've ever found that is at all similar is a little joint in Mountain View.  Who would have thought?  At any rate, I found my kabob and wouldn't you know it, I had to try it with sauerkraut.  Well, why not?  Well, a German-Turkish kabob is what I was looking for and I found it and all was right.

I realized by this point that I should have rented a bicycle.  I returned to my hotel, checked for my luggage, and then tried to rent a bicycle, but they were all out.  Recommendation: If you are up so early like me, rent the bicycle.  It would have been great.

A little later on, I went to the mustard museum.  I didn't want to go on the tour, but I did buy the fellows mustard recipe book, and some mustard, of course.  I was hoping that it would have recipes for how to make mustard, but instead it has recipes for what to do with the mustard once you've made it.  It's also in German.

This one of St. Ursula came out well, so
since I don't always make nice photos I
thought I would share it.

By this point, finding the churches has been in full swing.  It really is nice when you find one.  It's like ticking off names when you find survivors from a plane crash.  Ah yes, here is Kunibert.  And now it's Ursula.  Oh look, I have unexpectedly found Maria and Severin!

I walked up north past the main train station and found Eigelsteintor gate.  I walked and walked.  I think I really like to do this walking thing!

In the evening I visited a Brauhaus that was recommended to me by a friend (which happened to be near the third gate, Hahnetor, so BING, hit all three gates).  I don't know about the rest of Germany but Köln really has a lot of these Brauhauses.  And the local beer is this stuff called Kölsch, which is served in it's own wee glass, rather than the usual towering liter that one seems to get everywhere else.  I'm not a big fan of beer in general, but you know, when in Köln... I have to say though, it really is quite nice.  Fairly light, not tart and a flavor.  I cannot recall at this time what the flavor was like, but it was good all the same.  I guess there will be more of this beer drinking on this trip.

It turns out to be non-trivial to take a selfie along with
a full-sized bronze chap from 1823.

I really liked the Brauhaus.  It somehow reminded me a little bit of old New York.  There are many of these halls, some for tourists, richer ones, poorer ones, although I think I was directed to one with actual Kölners.  When you walk in you are kind of expected to know what's going on, but I was able to find someone who explained things to me, which was a good idea because I probably did better with the English menu than I would have with the German one.  They like to put strangers at the same table, so I got up real close to a few conversations that I was entirely unable to follow.  It was noisy, but not an obnoxious ear piercing noisy, I think mainly because they don't jack up music like all the bars in the US.  There was a simple system for tracking the number of beers you had, plus a means by which you could signal to the waiter to STOP I CAN'T DRINK ANYMORE.  I had only 3.  Or is that a lot?  I don't know, it was enough.

Anyway, better speed off in an orderly fashion now.  It's früstück time, and then I need to spend the rest of the day worrying about my luggage and traveling to Aachen.

Warum kann es nicht beides sein?

They make it very easy to go to both the chocolate and the mustard museum.  By happy coincidence they are right across the road from each other.  I ended up buying a book with mustard recipes from the mustard shop as I've been starting to make my own for unknown reasons.  At any rate, reading that book should improve my german.

The pain of choices

There is both a mustard museum AND a chocolate museum in köln.  How does one choose?

Arrived in Köln

 I guess the most adventurous part of any adventure is the adventure of getting from point a to point B, especially when point B is really just a stop off area for point C, which is a staging area for point D.  After delaying me for a day, the airlines, and I do refer to them collectively as I cannot tell whether I am flying with United or Lufthansa, have left my luggage in Houston Texas.  I'm assured I will receive it but in the meantime was offered the opportunity to waste my first afternoon in Europe searching desperately for any signs of socks to buy.  I was harder than you might think considering that Köln boasts the busiest shopping street in Europe and my hotel was situated right next to it.  Fear no, socks can only hide in the crows so long before they are discovered, and I found them just in time to succumb to a righteous bout of jet-lag.  Consequentially, I'm awake at 4:40am local time waiting for the only breakfast place listed in Alstat-Süd on Tripadvisor to open.

Proof of arrival in Köln

As many people who know me, when I am actually traveling I'm unlikely to remember a great deal about the experience, outside of important facts such as, "my luggage is in Texas", given the rather generous amount of anti-anxiety pills I need to take following a precarious incident in Kabul.  Equally I'm unlikely to do anything useful and touristy in such a state, but I have hazy recollection around capturing the blurry image of a cathedral just outside the main train station upon my arrival in Köln, both in order to capture the geo-code for my picture collection, and as proof of my arrival.