The Agrinautica

Thursday, May 28th - We rocketed through the German countryside at 280 kilometers an hour on the ICE train from Amsterdam. Tree lined fields flew by on undulating hills, and in the occasional tunnel our ears would pop. Quaint villages shot by with church steeples, and larger towns with walls covered in graffiti that was actually pretty ... in fact some of the graffiti appeared to be sponsored advertisements. This is not LA.

   It was dark out when we finally arrived at the Frankfurt train station, its dingy arched ceailings vaulting high overhead. From there we changed to a commuter train to the little town of Fredrichsdorf, at the end of the line. Here we walked up a narrow cobbled street from the little train station, between fachwerk houses with their exoskeletons of beams to the adorable little Lindenshof Hotel. In the lobby of this hotel, also of the exposed-beam fachwerk style, I found the staff had already gone to bed but had left my room keys and a note on the front desk for me.

   Some of our group who had arrived earlier were sitting in couches in the lobby chatting. I chatted with them a little bit but then decided to venture out looking for food. I was told there was a kebab shop just down the road that was probably still open.

   So I struck out down the moonlit cobbled street, running straight and narrow under the stars. I wasn't entirely sure I was going to right direction for the kebab shop but I was enjoying the walk. Presently I encountered another couple out walking who turned out to be another one of the couples from our group (that is, those of us who knew eachother from California and were there for Mark and Courtney's wedding on Satuday). They were looking for food as well, and as soon as we had discussed this we looked up and saw the sign for Cafe Klatch (sp?), a restaurant Mark had recommended, and it was still open. Had a delicious dish potatoes and cream and lentils and bacon and such served in a cast iron pan.


And random statues of hippopotamii

Friday, May 29th - In the morning I was out in the patio trying to take a good picture of the hotel but couldn't get far enough away to get a good picture in front. The manage came out and asked what I was doing, and then suggested I get up on the roof of the neighboring building to do so, which was relatively easy. I thought that was a kind of funny "would neverrrrrrrr happen in the US" piece of advice.

   When I left to my own devices, I have a tendency to wander into the forest. There being nothing going on on this morning I walked about the cute village and then came to a trail into the neighboring forest and wandered in. The trail flew through the forest straight as an arrow, and was a well maintained track of sod. Joggers and bicyclists came by occasionally. Little birds busied themselves in the underbrush. Presently Mark texted me and told me to come over so I had to find my way back out of the forest, or more to the point, since the trail I'd followed had been straight as a laser, I had to try to find an alternative route to make life a little more interesting. So after a little effort I finally succeeded in the sought-after convoluted side route out of the forest.
   With Mark, his dog Sam (border collie) and another friend we went walking out the other side of the village, which went through some fields and soon into another forest. I was a big fan of all this forest. Also of note, amid the fields there were many small plots apparently owned by people who live in the city and come out to their little plot in the country to have a garden. It's sort of like having a yard disconnected from your house, some were simply lawns with a picnic table and chairs, some were elaborate gardens, some were surrounded by high thick hedges.

   That evening we all went in to Frankfurt to have dinner at a traditional restaurant (an apfelvinhus?). Many fat bratwurts and golden schnitzel's were eaten, the latter accompanied by Frankfurt's specialty green sauce, which we were told was invented by the mother of famous German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Afterwards many of us proceeded to the part of town filled with bars for the drinking of beers by the liter. This warren of pedestrian-only streets was quite filled with joyful revellers on this Friday night. We saw several bachelor parties enjoying much greater success in their antics than we had ourselves in Amsterdam. Little by little people drifted off until I found myself the last to return to Fredrichsdorf, on the last train at 1:04am.



Saturday, May 30th - Woke up for the complimentary breakfast (delicious, sausages and bacon and croissants and scrambled eggs and freshly squeezed orange juice of which I had countless glasses) ... and then went back to bed. Jet lag and the heavy drinking of the night before had caught up to me apparently, and I pretty much stayed in bed from then until 1pm, when I had to get up to get ready for the wedding, which we were meeting for at 2.
   1:50 -- panic sets in when I realize the slacks I had thought I'd packed, and had definitely had in my hand and been about to pack, apparently ended not getting packed. The best I could come up with were black dickies, which I felt a little ashamed of but no one seemed to notice. Fortunately the wedding was a bit casual -- we had been told to wear yellow socks and grey converse.
   A charter bus had been booked to take us all from the Lindenhof to the castle at which the wedding was to take place. It couldn't navigate the quaint little roads of most of the village though so we had to walk down to near the train station to catch it. Half an hour later we were in another little town, walking up more little curving streets the bus couldn't navigate, until we entered the majestic ruins of the castle there. Wedding ceremony itself was in a large roofless room in castle. All the preparations had been done by the bride and groom and friends without professional caterers or wedding planners and I think it turned out quite well.


By no means the best picture but I figure a tying-the-knot picture is kind of obligatory

   From there we reboarded the bus to return to the Lindenhof. We'd booked the entire place for our party for the weekend, so it was only us there, and the staff throughout were so accommodating and friendly.
   Reception was a blast. After the hotel staff prepared and served a delicious dinner (the place is also a restaurant so they were well equipped for this), a long evening of drinking and dancing and partying ensued. One could alternative between the dance floor in the cosy elegant woodlined interior and the beautiful refreshing outside patio.
   Apparently it's a German tradition for the bride and groom to saw through a a piece of linden wood together to symbolize their teamwork or something... Well we had a piece of wood that was essentially green and a rusty saw that the manager later said was really just a prop to hang on the wall.. so needless to say it didn't go well. After making a serious effort at doing it themselves the bride and groom challenged other married couples to have a go at it, then the groom and best man had a go, and finally the bride and maid of honor finished it off.
   Another favorite reception moment of mine was when we finally got the four servers to rock out on the dance floor for a song. Finally some time after 3am I called it a night and stumbled the 100 feet to my room... where I proceeded to lay awake for another hour due no doubt to having slept all day.


Traditional fight-to-the-death between groom (r) and best man (l)

Sunday, May 31st - Was kind of planning on getting up for breakfast and going back to bed again but as it happened I felt alright after (delicious) breakfast). Checked out before the hotel staff left -- it being Sunday there would be no one working there that day (!). Reminds me of how at last year's castle wedding in France I had problems trying to leave on a Sunday when no taxis were operating. As for daily activities, I asked the manager about the nearby Roman fort I had heard about and he wrote down the directions to get there -- a short train ride to the next town over and then get on a certain bus. But I looked at a map and said to myself "it's just eight kilometers straight through the forest to get there!"
   Vacated my room (I had a train to catch just after midnight) and lugged my wheel-less luggage down the street to Mark and Courtney's place. Courtney met me at the door with "shhh everyone's asleep" and I went on my way through the forest over hill and dale.
   Despite having a pair of shoes (converse) I elected to do this eight kilometer forest trek in my flip flops, because my converse were just killing my feet. The flip flops (rainbows) served me well. I had a thoroughly pleasant walk for two hours or so along the maintained trails through the quiet expanses of forest, passed by the very occasional bicyclist. I would like to say finally out of the leafy foliage the ancient castle walls of the fortress emerged... but first it was the road and parking lot.


From inside the fort looking at one of the gate-houses.

   Those clever Romans had surrounded their encampment with stone battlements, a steep moat, and a chain link fence! Okay maybe the latter was modern, but it was no less an obstacle, and I circled around looking for the entrance but apparently went the wrong way around. Outside the main enclosure on one side a number of archeologists were taking measurements of some foundations ... and I took note that a majority of them seemed to be attractive young ladies. Maybe I should have become an archeologist after all! (it was my career aspiration before it changed to "diplomat" in high school)



   Finally I found the gift shop / entrance and just as I was about to go through I heard voiced speaking English. I stopped for a moment to behold this batch of American tourists ... only to see two couples from our group! It's maybe not so much a coincidence that we all ended up at the same location since it was one of the more interesting things in the immediate area, but the timing was quite a coincidence considering completely uncoordinated, after not seeing them in the morning and after I'd walked eight kilometers through the forest, we managed to arrive at the entrance at the same minute! Anyway so we all went in together and toured about the place. Deep in the forest, the fortress had survived into the modern era mainly as mere foundations, but had been recreated in the late 19th century to look significantly as it had in antiquity. I found it very interesting in the museum galleries looking at some of the tools that had been unearthed there, some wrench and plier like pieces of equipment looked almost modern. This fortress guarded the very furthest extent of the Roman Empire into unconquered Germany, and we walked a few hundred yards into the forest beyond it to where the ancient Roman border wall had been. A raised hump snaking away for dozens of kilometers in either direction can still be seen where the wall was, and just outside the fortress there a gap in the hump the width of a road, where the road had passed through it. I'm a big fan of Roman history, and I found being on a distinct point on the very edge of the empire felt more tangible and easy to wrap one's mind around than something in the amorpheous middle. It was easy to stand right there where the road passed through the wall, and visualize the lonely soldiers standing at the very edge of civilization here, this far distant outpost. Because Rome had a habit of recruiting people and dispatching them very far from home so they wouldn't cause trouble, the soldiers at this post probably felt they were at the very edge of the world.



   From there were were all driving back to Fredrichsdorf in the car one of the group had rented when we saw a cathedral spire over a hill and decided to investigae. As we were looking for parking near that cathedral what should we see but ANOTHER couple from the group (I was pretty much the only single one), so we joined them, and then our group of now seven walked about this town ("Bad Hamburg"?) and had dinner there.



   Then we returned to Fredrichsdorf, and I took the train to Frankfurt and hence to Sweden! But that's another entry! (:


See Also: Castle Wedding 2014: France (though unfortunately I didn't upload any of the pictures to flickr and now all the links are broken in the entry ): )

Tuesday, May 26th - "Excuse me, ... sex?"

   I was rather taken by surprise. I had just walked around the corner from the hostel I'd just checked into in Copenhagen, and a woman dressed fairly nondescriptly in a puffy black jacket had said "excuse me" in a politely insistent manner as if she were about to ask me for directions.
   I was at a loss for a second mainly because my immediate reaction to any kind of solicitation I want to have nothing to do with is often to respond "jag prata inte engelska" -- "I don't speak English," but this reaction was immediately tripped up by the simultaneous realization that I was in Denmark and there were pretty good odds she could speak Swedish and/or would be well aware that pretty much anyone who can speak Swedish can speak English. So I was left sort of stammering "uh, no thank you!"

   I was on a sort of lightning tour of Europe -- 24 hours in Copenhagen, 24 hours in Amsterdam, about four days near Frankfurt, and about two and a half days in Sweden. The occasion was a good friend's wedding near Frankfurt. I had found a wicked good deal on Norwegian Airlines -- $560 round trip between Los Angeles and Copenhagen!
   Norwegian is definitely a budget airline. $60 if you want an in-flight meal! If I'm paying $60 for a meal it better be filet mignon and accompanied by candles and a string quartet! Not something microwaved and plastic-wrapped! So I spent a very hungry flight. The couple next to me had booked themselves food service, which led to some awkwardness because the woman clearly felt bad that I wasn't eating and kept glancing over at me while I studiously tried to look busy reading my book -- trying not to make them feel guilty or worse be given food by them and feel like some kind of freeloading lout.
   "You're not hungry?" She finally asked.
   "I didn't want to pay $60 for the meal" I said, feeling cheap.
   "It was??" she turned to her husband in surprise. Now I felt guilty for making them call into question their purchasing decisions. No end of awkwardness over this situation basically.



   It was very easy to catch the comfortable little train from the airport to the downtown station (about 20 minutes) and then my hostel ($37 a night) was right across from the train station. It was nice, smallish, on the more comfortable side of hostels I've been in (bunks weren't just freestanding but each set in its own nook with walls fore and aft, a solid shelf under the mattress, and a curtain to pull across the open side for privacy. After checking in and leaving my bags there I set out to see the town.
   And as mentioned immediately encountered a prostitute. Who didn't even look like a crack-whore. Welcome to Europe! As it was after 5pm I figured the museums would all be closed so just started walking downtown. It was rather brisk, I'm glad I brought my peacoat. I walked through nice cobbled pedestrian-only streets downtown in a canyon of tall old European buildings. I stopped to read the menu on the "Modern American Restaurant!" and a waiter tried to beckon me in, I just laughed merrily.
   I found my way to Christiania, an anarchic district of Copenhagen I had heard about where laws aren't enforced. I had always pictured it as a thriving flea-market of things being sold tax-free, maybe illegally copied DVDs, suspension of alcohol and drug laws, and probably where the prostitutes would be (rather than around the corner from my hostel). I was fairly disappointed though, all I found there was a sort of rastifarian village. The walls were covered in colourful graffiti, red, yellow and green flags fluttered by the dozens in the cold wind, images of Bob Marley an Che Guevara woven on hemp tapestries festooned the shops. The smell of marijuana wafted thickly on the air. I didn't see anything other than crude rastifarian knick-knacks for sale. You're given freedom and this is what you do? I continued on my way.


Nyhavn

   Next I trotted to Nyhavn (new harbour), it had looked cute in some pictures I saw. It was a canal with lots of wooden sailboats moored up all along it's sides, and a continuous row of little restaurant cafes lining the parallel road. I stopped here and had coffee under a heat-lamp.
   By now my feet were killing me. For the wedding we were told to wear grey chuck taylors (converse) and yellow socks. Rather than bring multiple pairs of shoes I decided to ONLY bring the chucks I had bought for the occasion. As it turns out converse have a pretty thin flat sole, and doing extensive walking on un-broken-in converse was just a terrible idea.
   I returned to the hostel and chatted with other people there most of the evening. One funny thing I learned from an Indian fellow currently attending the university at Lund, Sweden, was that "Lund" apparently means "penis" in his native punjabi, so he was very embarrassed to tell people back home where he went to school...


Nyhavn again, I really wish I'd had better lighting.

Wednesday, May 27th - got up as soon as the hostel breakfast became available at 8am. From my experience the "continental breakfast" you get on the actual continent in question (Europe) is incomparably better than the crappy "continental breakfast" you get in the US, which usually consists of a few tiny bran muffins, caustic cheap fake orange juice and nescafe. The hostel had good coffee, freshly baked bread (tasted like it might have been soda bread?), fresh jams and butters and cheeses, ham and salami, and fresh tasting orange juice.
   While I was eating it was amusing to watch on facebook as various reports came in from the other attendees of the bachelor party which would be that evening in Amsterdam. Some people were just arriving in Europe, one couple was driving from Paris, the best man apparently was ALREADY having to jump off the train to puke somewhere near Frankfurt. An auspicious beginning!


They like twisty towers apparently

   I headed to the National Museum, just a quick walk three blocks toward the center of town. Admission was free and I was engrossed in their exhibits which begin with stone age Denmark, with arrowheads, bones, a dug-out canoe that had been preserved under a bog, etc, and advance through time from there. I probably spent an hour looking at exhibits just progressing from 6000 BC to 1500 BC. This is another reason I like to travel alone, what if my travel companion did NOT feel stone age Denmark was worth hours of their time??
   The sea levels rose, and giant elk became extinct, the people turned more towards farming and the exhibits continued on into the bronze age. Swords and tools and daggers, religious emblems of the sun being pulled in a chariot. The burial of a young woman in a beaded skirt, an outfit that looked like something you'd call "unrealistically cute and stylish" if you saw it in a hollywood film.
   I learned some interesting things. Early drawings of their ships looked like they had beaked ramming prows like Greek triremes, which you definitely see no indication of in later viking longships. And I'd always been told that the vikings didn't actually wear horned helmets but there staring at me were some bronze helmets that clearly had horns. Obviously not into battle, but apparently for ceremonial purposes at least tehy were an actual thing.
   On to the iron age and a very surprising amount of Roman trade goods. You don't really think of "vikings" trading with Romans and valuing ornate Roman crafts but of course it's a thing. Copenhagen means "shopping harbor" and while the earliest evidence of habitation there specifically only got back to circa 1000, Denmark has always been in an ideal position as a center of coastal trade between northern Germany and the western coasts of Europe.
   Unfortunately I had only reached the end of the iron age exhibits, circa approximately the end of the Roman era (400ish AD), by the time (noon) I had to leave to go catch my flight (3:30pm). I didn't even get to the actual viking era! Clearly I need to go back! (also my mother (furzicle) informs me I need to go back because I didn't have a waffle)

   Once again it was an easy transit back to the airport (Lufthavn - air harbor), and I was off to Amsterdam! And that, of course, is another story. ;)