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| Nuremberg |
The song "Get To You"
kept going through my head as I pulled out my computer to write about the
German portion of the tour. It is a song about a journey to get to a person loved. We love our journeys.
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| View from a train window in Germany |
Long train trips offer a perfect opportunity to write the
BLOG but it means my eyes keep darting from the keyboard to the scenery speeding
past the window. We are amazed at how much beautiful open land there is throughout England and
Europe. These countries are centuries old but only the cities are crowded. The
farmlands are abundant with delicious vegetables like the ones my grandma used
to raise. Tomatoes with flavor! If I'm ever home long enough to pick a ripe
tomato, I plan on planting them in abundance, but I'm married to a troubadour
who never wants to stop carrying his
guitar to places where folks will listen. Thank you all so much for listening!
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| Cologne Cathedral |
Castles and Cathedrals are scattered everywhere. They
took centuries to build but the solar panels and wind turbines are new to the
landscape. We are sincere proponents of using the power of the sun and wind. Germany
has miles of solar farms and thousands of houses storing the energy of a new
time. Remember the stone age ceased because they found better ways, not because
they ran out of stones. Our hope is that our oil age will cease when the
ability to store the sun's energy becomes available, cost effective and
important to everyone.
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German Solar Farm
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When we talk about the different countries we have
visited, Roger always says that he loves Germany because everything works. Well
Germany was having a glitch when we toured in September. Our "boot
camp" continued!
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| Cologne Train Station |
Figuring the logistics for three and half months was a
daunting task, but I was sure that the German portion of our train connections
would be exactly as listed. After a wonderful stay and concert in Antwerp, we
boarded the train for a long trip to Hamburg. Little did we know that the
German train drivers had called for a three hour strike. Our train left Antwerp
on time, arrived in Brussels on time and in Cologne on time. With a 55 minute
connection time we strolled to our next platform. The September weather was
sunny and warm. Sitting on the platform watching the people was delightful. We
felt confident that all was well with the world. Then announcements in German
began and every so often one in English. "Due to the strike the train to
Hamburg has been delayed 30 minutes." We were still comfortable on one of
the few benches available. After 30 minutes, I became less comfortable. I went to check the electronic platform board. Our train was in
the station but at a different platform. It was boarding.
I ran to get Roger and our luggage. The escalator down
was working. When we got to the escalator going up to the changed platform, it
was out of order. We didn't have time to look for an elevator, so we began
carrying our heavy luggage up the escalator steps. The metal steps were not conducive
to dragging the wheeled bags up, so we had to lift them. Now I thought we had
sparsely packed for our almost 18 week adventure, but lifting our bags on that
escalator caused me to lament at having to need anything at all. Half way up a
young couple who was passing us picked up my second bag and got me to the top.
I broke a rule, left my bags there and ran back down to take the guitar Roger
was carrying. We each carry one guitar, one roller bag and one misc bag. Roger
also carries a third bag for those last minute things like water. We boarded
the train just before it pulled out of the station.
The first German concert was in Hamburg on September 7th.
Peter, the promoter for the eight German
concerts and the one Austrian concert of our tour, met us at the hotel. We had
worked with Peter five years ago. He wasn't only a promoter, he had become a
friend.
We traveled by train to all but one of the cities with a
day off every two days.
The train from Oldenburg to Nuremberg was delayed
reaching our connection in Hannover. We had 14 minutes to change platforms.
That wouldn't have been a problem if the train had been on time and especially
if the electronic platform list had been working. It was working except for the part that listed the platform
for our train to Nuremberg. Once we found the location of our connection, we
ran to the platform but the elevator wasn't working. One more time we were
dragging our bags up the stairs. Finally as we reached the top of the stairs we caught site of our train just leaving the
station. We laughed as we simultaneously said, "Boot Camp!"
Fortunately, I had a rail planner app on
my iPhone. There was another train to Nuremberg in 30 minutes.
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| Dinner Time |
The train arrived
in Nuremberg in time for dinner. Walking the ancient streets in the cool
evening gave us a sense of history. We found a beer garden to enjoy a
delightful traditional German dinner.
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| Osnabruck from our hotel window. |
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| Osnabruck restaurant |
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| Roger in Berlin |
On our way to the last German concert in Stuttgart, we
lost another electronic device. It was a perfect storm. The train lurched, a
box of crackers fell into a glass, the glass fell into Roger's Apple MacBook
Air computer keyboard. The computer was destroyed. One iPad, one camera and now
one computer had become pieces of dead hardware due to liquids. The camera was
replaced and now we had to replace the computer because Roger still had two
more lectures on the Queen Mary 2 during the November 12 crossing to New York.
The presentation was dependent on the computer program showing pictures, video and audio clips. Roger had diligently
backed up the lectures on a separate hard drive. We decided to wait until we
got to London to visit the Apple store for another computer. I decided that I
didn't really need another iPad. Life just got simpler.
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Roger taking the computer apart.
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The computer disaster didn't dampen the Stuttgart
concert. It was in a wonderful venue with a great sound system and happy
audience. We left a note for Elvis Costello who was playing there a few weeks
after Roger.
Our TGV train left our final German city, Stuttgart on Sept
23rd for London via Paris on the Eurostar. Our traveling "chops" were
now fine tuned. Navigating the German
train stations became as familiar as our beloved highways of the United States.
We were hoping the "Boot Camp"
training was coming to an end but even the glitches from London to Germany had
already become a funny part of our sweet memories.
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| Linz Austria |
