The Quest of the Unholy Mountain

I think I wrote not too long ago that Winter is a great time to shoot low light landscapes and such because the sun rises late and sets early.  Well, that's all well and good if the weather is agreeable.

Somehow I don't think the specs are necessary here.

Believe it or not you're looking at a big arena that can seat several thousand people.  Last Sunday we headed to Heidelberg, not to see the world's largest wine barrel, visit the castle ruins, or walk through the shopping district.  We intended to climb the "Holy Mountain" (Heilingenberg) and photograph some rather curious sights.  Instead, we climbed Heilingenberg, into a snowy fog, got lost a couple times (once again due to a lack of proper signage) and saw just a shadow of what we intended to see.  The first place was the above arena.  Truth be told, I was hoping there'd be snow or fog, but this was a little more than I was thinking.  This arena has a sinister past, and some gloomy atmospherics would fit it nicely.  It was built in 1935.  That date is probably a clue to who had it built.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, came up with the idea of building 1,000 of these arenas for the purpose of holding Nazi propaganda plays, presentations, and films.  These arenas were called Thingstatte or Thingplatz, in a typical Nazi attempt to tie into a fanciful Germanic past.  "Things" were actually Medieval Norse (Scandinavian) and Germanic gatherings of free men held to settle clan issues and make group decisions.  They are a very rudimentary basis for today's parliaments.  As usual, the Nazis perverted German culture heritage, in this case twisting a gathering of free people with equal voices into a tool for cultural brainwashing.  The movement wasn't a priority for Hitler, so the Thingstatte above Heidelberg turned out to be one of only 45 that were actually constructed.  This one housed 20,000 participants on its opening day, when Goebbels himself oversaw the ceremony.  After the war, the arena was abandoned for the most part.  Today it is sometimes used for concerts and open air movies.  But, mostly it sits as an empty and moss draped curiosity.  It is a popular spot to explore on Sundays, even if it is covered in ice and shrouded in a thick fog.

Fujifilm X-E2 ISO 1600 30mm f/4 1/250  

Fujifilm X-E2 ISO 1600 18mm f/11 1/60

The other site I was hoping to photograph were the ruins of the church of the Michaelkloster, a 11th century monastery.  The church incorporates the ruins of a Roman temple to Mercury.  The mountain is covered in archaeological sites; this is one of most important.  But...

iPhone 5s

Well, we climbed the Holy Mountain as fast as possible despite the lack of signs in the super thick mist and finally arrived at St. Michael's Cloister to find an actual useful sign which conveyed a great deal of information (don't sell things here, don't set things on fire, don't come in when the gate is shut, respect the premises, the authorities will track you down if you do any of this stuff...).  However, what it did not say was that it won't be open even when the sign says it should be.  While tourists can haul themselves up here through snow, ice, and fog, the person responsible for making sure people don't sell stuff or light stuff on fire couldn't be bothered.

Thankfully, the hut at the top of the mountain was open so we could grab a drink and thaw out.  That was that.  No pictures of ruins, just pictures of mist over a barely recognizable, uh, thing.  Ok, Winter, you're tough.

We did grab this shot of the Alte Brucke on our way to dinner.

Fujifilm X-E2 ISO 200 46mm f/10 15secs, soft focus filter

 Somehow over the course of all this I managed to tweak the index and middle finger of my right hand.  Being a righty, this causes me a bit of a problem in just about everything, but most definitely for holding or operating a camera.  So, I'm out of commission until things heal up.  Perhaps I'll do a little indoor work this week.  Perhaps.

Misadventures at Hohenzollern Castle

Last weekend's plans fell through so we decided to take advantage of our stolen time by taking a rather industrious day trip into Baden-Württemberg to check out the famous Hohenzollern Castle.  A six hour drive there and back didn't seem so terrible.  Heck, we used to make that drive down to Columbus and back when we lived in Akron just to have dinner (at a German family restaurant, oddly enough).  Anyway, it all sounded perfectly reasonable.

So, we left early in the morning of Sunday and headed down to the castle.  The drive went along smoothly, albeit insanely dull.  One highpoint was getting stuck in a small town that was holding a parade for people dressed as witches.  Whether that was some sort of traditional Carnival activity or not was never determined.  After escaping the witches we arrived in the village below the castle (this is starting to sound like a work of the Grimm brothers).  The plan was to go to the park on a hill opposite the castle to take some pictures than head to the castle for a tour.  Well, when we arrived this was the view.

Fujifilm X-E2 ISO 800 55m f/10 1/500

Not exactly what I was hoping for.  Additionally, as you can see, it had snowed quite a bit.  While making the surroundings extremely beautiful, it made finding a trail to the park impossible.  Ah, if only there were things you could hang up on trees or posts that could indicate to visitors the proper direction for such attractions.  I believe they're known as signs in my neck of the woods.  Eh hem.  Anyway, even if we had found a sign that indicated the correct direction of the viewpoint to the castle, the low laying clouds completely enveloped the castle and the hill where this park supposedly existed.  So, after taking a few shots in the forest we decided to head over to the castle for the tour and hope for better weather afterwards.  

Fujifilm X-E2 ISO 800 55mm f/13 1/500

Hohenzollern Castle is considered one of the most beautiful castles in Germany.  It is.  However, besides its aesthetic qualities, the castle itself isn't a very interesting attraction.  The castle was built by the Hohenzollern family in the mid-1800's to replace a ruin from the mid-1400's.  At this point the Hohenzollerns were an important dynastic family in Germany.  Kings of Prussia and the emperors of the short-lived German Empire (1871-1918) were members.  The castle was basically built as showpiece for the family, much like the better known Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.  No one lived in Hohenzollern Castle, so anyone hoping for a peep into the lifestyle of the German emperors will be disappointed.  Basically, it is a shrine to the glory days of a family long past its time of influence or importance.  The tour, thankfully inexpensive, takes the visitor through a handful of dusty, unheated rooms that apparently never really served much of a purpose when they were constructed.  Non-German speakers are given a book in their language to read on the tour, an activity, quite frankly, which could be attempted more comfortably in the visitor center.  Perhaps audioguides along with signage will some day catch on in the future.  If the grounds are wet, the visitor is obligated to wear giant slippers over their shoes making the somewhat dull tour more interesting with the prospect of oneself or someone else tripping on the uneven floors and crashing into a "priceless" yet tarnished decorative item.  The tour concludes in the treasury where you can see the crown of Wilhelm II, among other things.  However, like the castle itself, the crown was never used either.  So, the visitor (unless they are fans of the Hohenzollern dynasty) walks away feeling like they just visited a roadside attraction which cost an ridiculous amount of money to construct so some folks could play act at being fairytale royalty.  

But, that doesn't mean it isn't a remarkable photographic subject.  While regretting the time and money spent on the tour, the view from the castle of the surrounding countryside was worth taking the paid bus ride to the top of Hohenzollern Berg.

We never made it back to the hill overlooking the castle.  The sun was already heading down by the time the tour had ended and we climbed back down the hill to the car.  So, I never got the shot I had dragged us three hours down the autobahn to take .  One of the lessons I'm learning during this experimentation with landscape photography is how important proper planning is.  Don't try to fit too much.  But, most importantly you can't account for the weather.  As it worked out, I ended up taking the last shot of the trip from the side of the road below the castle.  The light of the ending day ended up being pale and subtle as the heavy cloud cover cleared away.  While nothing really ended up being the way we hoped and some plans went awry, this unexpected view ended up being quite satisfactory.

Canon 600D ISO 100 19mm f/9 40secs, 10 stop ND filter, two exposure blend with Photoshop

The rest of the photos from our Hohenzollern misadventures can be viewed on Flickr and some will be up on Instagram and for sale Twenty20 as well.

Three Shots from Aschaffenburg

While the weather isn't particularly pleasant over the next few months and there aren't any state holidays on the Hessian calendar until Easter, we're pretty much staying close to home on the weekends.  It's kind of nice not to have anywhere we need to be.  It gives time for leisurely Saturday morning bike rides to a cafe for a pastry and a coffee, Sunday lie ins, Netflix binges, backgammon tournaments and strolls along the river.  The first few months of the year can be pretty dull now that the holidays are over, and Winter still remains.  But, there is one thing about Winter that makes it worth going out, the light.

Since we don't have anywhere to be, we thought it'd be a good chance to do a little exploring around the area and to take some photos around sunrise or sunset.  Sunrise is around 8:00am, so that doesn't require any ridiculous alarm times.  Sunset happens around 5:00pm, providing plenty of shooting time before dinner.  So, even though the temperatures are polar, Winter is really the best time of year for city night and landscape shooting.  Plus, around here at least, the sunrises and sunsets can be pretty spectacular because of the unique cloud cover and position of the sun.

This past weekend, we headed into Aschaffenburg, one of the larger cities on the Main River, about 45 minutes upriver from Frankfurt.  Aschaffenburg used to belong to the Prince Bishops of Mainz and then was passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria.  Consequently, it has several rather impressive constructions, the most famous being the Schloss Johannisburg.  We ride by the Schloss pretty regularly on bike rides and even after a year, I still can't get over the size.  I've taken many pictures of it, usually with my phone in passing, but never intentionally came to the city to focus on it as a subject.  This weekend it was my second priority so I plan on going back to it again soon.  On our way to the river,  it became clear from the glimpses of the sky through the buildings that we were missing a particularly brilliant light show.   By the time we got down to the river sunset was just ending.  We didn't have enough time to set up before it was over, so I whipped out my X-E2 and snapped the shot below quickly from the bike path.  One of the things I love about this camera is that I can get a shot in low light like this handheld.  I took this using the Vibrant film simulation, but other than adding the watermark I didn't edit it any further.  One of the great things about Fujifilm's X-Series is that they are WiFi connectable.  So, I was able to post this directly to Instagram shortly after taking it.  One of my goals over the next couple of years is to stop using my phone as a primary camera.  Having a WiFi capable camera makes that possible.

Fujifilm X-E2 ISO 1600 18mm f/6.5 1/30

After taking that, we headed down to the bridge over the Main and set the tripod up.  The bridge is the main route over the river from the western bank and sees a lot of traffic.  So, there's quite a bit of shake.  I switched over to the Canon because I wanted to use its wide-angle lens.  I enabled mirror lock-up, disabled image stabilization, and used a remote shutter.  But, with the bridge shake, there was no way to get a perfectly sharp image.  I'm not a pixel peeper, but in editing I noticed there was some blur in the details.  Oh well, there's nothing that can be done about a shaky bridge!

Canon 600D ISO 100 16mm f/9 6.0secs

I didn't do too much with this in post except crop it down a little and remove a buoy in the river that I found distracting.  The image here is showing somewhat brighter and more saturated than it does elsewhere, which may just be a Blogger glitch.  While I like the view and the Schloss, I'm not really "into" this particular shot.  In hindsight, I wish I had made it there while the sunset was doing its thing because I think it would have highlighted the building a bit better than the lights and would have added more interest in the sky and water.  So, this is on the list of things to try again in the future.

Where was I which made me miss the sunset?  There's a rather large park in the center of the city that was part of the royal grounds back when the King of Bavaria had his summer residence in Aschaffenburg.  While the king and kingdom are no more, the palace and park remain and it's full of interesting little sights.  One of those are ruins of a medieval church that are on an island in the middle of a small lake.  The ruins were my primary location and I was hoping to get them while the lowlight of the sun cut through the park a bit.  We spent a lot of time walking around the ruins trying to find a good angle.  But, while it's an interesting spot, it wasn't so interesting to photograph.  The site is closed off from the public with a barred gate and windows that take away from the visual impact of the ruins on one side.  It is one of those things that the eye overlooks, but the lens cannot.  On the other side there's some debris and warning tape that makes the whole spot look like an unsightly construction area.  So, that left me with the back end of the apse, and on the side of the lake furthest from the ruins.  It took some time for me to find a spot that didn't have fencing, trash cans, walking paths, or benches in the shot, but I finally found a little corner (nearly in a bush) that gave a view of the ruins without showing all the uninteresting and somewhat ugly "city stuff."  I originally planned to use the X-E2 when I was thinking about the ruins, but when I found this spot I immediately switched over to the Canon so I could use the 10-22mm wide angle lens.  There was a little brook that fed into the lake with an attractive angle and I wanted to get that in the frame more than I wanted the ruins.

Canon 600D ISO 100 10mm f/9 1.6s, edited with Photoshop

Unlike the other two, I spent a lot of time with this one in post.  With the low light, I wanted to take a long exposure in order to capture the silky movement of the water.  Of course, doing that meant the little bit of sky peeping through the trees was going to get blown out.  I haven't started using ND filters yet, though I have recently picked up a few to begin experimenting with soon.  However, because the horizon here wasn't clear cut, I probably wouldn't have used a graduated ND filter anyway.  So, I decided to take multiple exposures, one long to get the water and the fading light on the ruins in the background, and another much faster to get the sky.  I didn't want a full HDR look for the final result, so I blended the two with a much slower process using multiple layers.  While it clearly has undergone some processing to get the final result, I wasn't going for a completely natural look to begin with.  It was a place that imparted a feeling of mystery.  I wanted to sift through all the junk of a modern city park and create a photograph that might bring that mysterious vibe back to the surface.

So, those were the three shots from the weekend.  Thanks to some early birthday presents, I've replaced my worn out Manfrotto tripod with a slick and funky Three Legged Thing "Brian" and the awkward Lowepro Slingshot with a Hama Daytour 230.  I'm really looking forward to trying them out in the coming weekends.  This weekend, however, we have friends in to town, so I'll be foregoing landscape shooting in favor of just the X-E2 with a new lens (that just came to the door about 5 minutes ago).  More on that next week!

The Spirit of Christmas

Someone back home in the States said to me recently that the Germans probably have a better understanding of the meaning of Christmas and the holiday season than Americans.  I don't know about that.  I can't think of one person back home who lauds the commercialism that the season now seems to represent.  Despite what the TV, store displays, and radio would suggest, I think that most people still value traditions, time spent with family or friends, and the time of reflection of the season, not to mention the food.  It seems that every year the shopping season gets longer, the music gets worse, and the decorations more frivolous and tacky.  We all complain about it.  And, while so far the wretched inflatable decorations haven't really caught on over here, I think Germany also struggles with a corruption of the season. I've heard repeatedly from several sources in solemn tones that when it comes to the insanity of the holidays, Germany is getting out of control just like everyone else.  Seriously, with barely an observance of Halloween and certainly no Thanksgiving, the shopping season started, oh, somewhere around October 1st.  While the leaves were still mostly green, loaves of stollen and bottles of Glühwein started appearing on shelves.  While we've been spared the media inundation since we don't watch local TV or listen to radio, a trip to the grocery store last night was the only proof I needed that the Germans are just as wacky three days before Christmas as Americans.

But, there is one thing I can honestly say makes the season better in Germany.  I give to you the humble Christmas Market, known in these parts as Weihnachtsmarkt or Christkindlmarkt.  Christmas Markets started in the German speaking world sometime in the late Middle Ages.  The one downriver in Frankfurt has been going on since at least 1393.  They coincide with the four weekends of Advent.  Traditional ones end the weekend before Christmas, but nowadays some of the larger ones stay open until Christmas Eve. They've since become regular features around the Western world.  There's one on the Champs-Élysées, you can visit one in Leeds, and Akron even used have a respectable offering about 10 years ago (it has, alas, become a sad shadow of its former self.  Oh, Akron...sigh).  But, the best ones are still to be found where it all began- Germany.

Market square of Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Fujifilm X-E2 18mm f/9 1/125

This season we decided we were going to take advantage of this most wondrous cultural offering and visit as many as possible.  Somewhere between steaming cups of Glühwein, nibbling on a Schneeball, and strolling through endless stalls of goods we discovered that we started feeling, well, Christmassy.  I have this vision of what Christmas is supposed to be like, it's some sort of mashup of Dickens, pre-Christian yule, and It's a Wonderful Life.  I imagine big pots of hot drink, lots of sparkly candles, carolers, simple or elaborate food items being showcased on festive tables, and a general feeling of goodwill amongst strangers.  In short, I think Christmas is supposed to be fun, to do exactly what the old yule celebrations did- scare away the dark, cold, and general unease of winter.  Here, for the first time in I don't know how long, it felt exactly this way.  We attended 6, and maybe we'll squeeze in one more this evening.  We went to tiny ones and we went to huge ones.  We had good weather and we had truly wretched weather.  But, at every single one we had fun and there was none of that oppressive and overwhelming stressed out commercial feeling at any.  Never once did I hear a single pop Christmas song.  There wasn't an inflatable Santa on a Harley in sight either.  So, without further ado, here are some shots from the markets.

Fujifilm X-E2 18mm f/10 1/160, edit Photoshop

 This spot is one of the quintessential shots of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  Rothenburg o.d.T is probably one of the most well known stops along the Romantic Road, a tourist route from Würzburg to Füssen.  What it is known for are the Christmas shops, museum, and the fact the old town is trapped, architecturally speaking, in the Middle Ages.  It's a beautiful place to explore, but getting a wide shot without brightly clothed and bumbling tourists is nigh impossible.  I had hoped to stick around late so the crowds would thin out, but the weather was atrocious so we high tailed it home early.

Fujifilm X-E2 42mm f/4 1/180

Paper stars are a traditional decoration at Christmas.  They are typically hung in windows, and as you can see throw off a rich and festive glow.  I found myself drawn to the stalls that sold them, and finally after much jostling in Rothenburg o.d.T I found this one that was positively infested with the beautiful things.   Of course, while trying to get the shot, about a half dozen other tourists decided I must be onto something and immediately stepped in front.  Oh, the trials of the 5'3" photographer...

Fujifilm X-E2 55mm f/5 1/250

 Würzburg is a regular haunt for us, just being about an hour down the Autobahn.  It's the northern terminus of the Romantic Road and known especially for its Baroque architecture.  I was absolutely enamored with the cream yellow facade of the Haus zum Falken in all its lavish Rococo glory.  I found the bright red of the Marienkapelle a nice contrast to its more ornate neighbor.

Fujifilm X-E2 39mm f/4 1/125, Fuji Vibrant Film Simulation

For unique shopping, the winner this year was the Ronneburg Castle Historic Market.  The parking for this one was utterly atrocious and we found ourselves climbing a rather substantial hill for about an hour before we finally entered the gates of this market.  However, it was totally worth it, and an excellent test of my new Holdfast Gear Moneymaker strap system (more on that some other time).  Here are some olive wood items for sale outside of the castle.  The grain of the wood makes for some striking patterns on the objects, so I decided to utilize the Vibrant film simulation so they'd pop just a little more.  We ended up walking away with a wonderful snack bowl and polished horn spoons from this stand.  

Fujifilm X-E2 33mm f/4.5 1/500

 The weekend of the Ronneburg market was rather brisk, which caused some excellent steam action off our clay Glühwein mugs.  It was also a great opportunity to showcase the bright clarity of the Fujinon 18-55mm lens.  

Fujifilm X-E2 41mm f/6.4 1/250

There was something about this scene of smoke wafting around the straw strewn grounds of Ronneburg Castle, the laughter, the smell of meats roasting on open fires, and the folks strolling about in tunics with swords hanging from their waists that had me saying, "This is what I always imagined Christmas to be like."  Weird, I know.  Please bear in mind I spent a good portion of my younger years studying medieval customs and architecture.  Anyway, this isn't the best shot in the world, but it captures a moment.  That's what photography is for, right?

Canon 600D 100mm f/5 1/80

I've been carry a two camera kit to the markets, the Fujifilm X-E2 for mostly wide shots and the Canon 600D with the 55-250mm for close-ups.  Most of the action the Canon saw was at Ronneburg because of the wonderfully photogenic crowd that only a Medieval Fair can attract.  This lens is no where near fast (a constant struggle at cycling races), but it works well enough for the time being when I'm trying to zero in on one person or thing and crowds or my limited height won't let me get any closer.

Canon 600D 154mm f/5.6 1/80

 These two, St. Nicholas and the Christkind (a really perplexing character who is called the Christ Child, but most definitely isn't, being an adult female and all.  I hope to get her figured out by next Christmas), were a bear to photograph.  St. Nick is, of course, a favorite with the children and his partner was handing out candies to every child in the joint.  So, they were surrounded by quite the crowd of kids hell bent on nabbing a chocolate and parents hell bent on getting a photo of their children with the pair.  This was the best I could pull off, being smaller than the average German child or parent.  Plus, good St. Nick seemed overwhelmed with the whole situation and insisted on hiding behind his counterpart for most of the time.  I didn't blame him.

Canon 600D 135mm f/5 1/80

I spotted him just as we were leaving Ronneburg for the day.  Thankfully, he didn't make for much of a moving target for my sluggish long lens.  It was only after I was looking at it in post that I noticed the wonderfully carved head on the guitar. 

Canon 600D 100mm f/5 1/150

 Here is an example of handmade Christmas decorations that you will find all over the Markets.  This one happened to be on one of the trees at the market in Würzburg.  Something about the delicate simplicity of the straw creations paired with fruit on the tree hinted at an image of Christmases long past.

Fujifilm X-E2 23mm f/5.6 1/80, Vibrant film simulation

 The light on the day we went to Michelstadt was a bit gloomy, so I shot mostly with the Vibrant film simulation.  Michelstadt is known for its timber frame buildings and the whimsical Rathaus (Town Hall) is its most famous structure.  I would have loved to have had some snow on this day, for this town is just saturated in old-timey Christmas goodness already.

Fujifilm X-E2 55mm f/4 1/180

These are the famous Franconian Schneebälle pastries.  They're basically slices of dough that are wadded up and fried in a special contraption and then covered in something.  Traditionally, they are covered in powdered sugar (my favorite), but there are many variations of the ancient treat (supposedly the recipe has been around for 300 years).  Now you can get them filled with cream or soaked in rum and covered in chocolate.  The sugar coma possibilities are endless.

  

Fujifilm X-E2 18mm f/4 1/250, Vibrant film simulation

 Every market has a giant Christmas Pyramid.  The pyramids are traditionally from the Erzgebirge Mountains, but now are popular all over Germany.  Traditionally, they featured nativity scenes or angels, but now some feature more secular scenes of village or woodland life.  This is a more modern rendition featuring one of these secular scenes.  I took this snapshot for folks back home to have an example of some typical market scenes, without thought to composition.  The light was terrible all day and the sun was heading down at this point, but thanks to my X-E2's amazing ability at high ISO levels (1000), I was able to get it handheld.  

Fujifilm X-E2 55mm f/4 1/70

 Another time I was thankful for my X-E2's lowlight capabilities (ISO 1250).  Gosh, mirrorless is a wonderful thing! We went to this market with some friends so I didn't want to carry the full set up that day and just worked with the X-E2.  It was a great opportunity to test its wide range of capabilities with just the kit lens.  

Fujifilm ISO 1250 26mm f/11 1/70

I snapped this as we were leaving Michelstadt in the evening and the sun was getting low on the horizon.  Michelstadt ended up being our favorite market of 2014, maybe it was because we shared the time with friends or it was our first one of the year, but this one had just the right ambiance.

I find myself slightly saddened by the thought that the Christmas market season has come to a close and for the first time a feeling that there is a little magic to the season.  It's not the handmade goods, or the lights, or the food, or the spiced wine (ok, maybe it is the spiced wine).  I think that it mostly has to do with these wonderful markets fostering a feeling of well being amongst the vendors and attendees.  People go, and not just tourists, to have basic seasonal fun.  At the markets you can sing along with the carolers and fight the cold with a mug of mulled goodness just like the yule celebrations of yore, buy wonderful little homemade Christmas wreaths like those in a Dickens tale, and happily wish everyone you pass a "Frohe Weihnachte!" like one would in a German speaking Bedford Falls.  That just warms the cockles of my heart.  I hear there's still one market operating today down the road.  If you need me this evening I'll be standing around a barrel laughing with some strangers, sipping Glühwein, snapping some pictures, and feeling mighty pleased with the whole situation.  Who knows, maybe it'll even give The Dog a feeling of goodwill toward men.  Christmas miracles do happen...

More photos can be viewed on Flickr and will be popping up on Instagram

BIG Breath and....

It's been quite some time since I punched a few lines onto this blog.  August and September was all about training for a Century ride, leaving me with surprisingly very little say.  We had a rather pleasant 100 mile ride in mid-September and then after that a tight schedule leading up to our annual trip back to Akron.  Now, here we are at the very end of October.

The trip "home," the definition of which is up for debate, is an interesting experience for expats.  For those that can travel back and forth to their native land regularly the disconnect probably isn't as acute.  For those of us who only get back once a year or less, the experience can be, well, rather bizarre.  The more time that passes on assignment the greater the gulf can grow between then and now, here and there.  Sometimes, when faced with the reality that this is just an assignment and home will most definitely be over there again, the feelings are mixed.  Unless someone's expat journey has been completely negative, we feel a kinship with the new place sometimes equal to or even exceeding our native home.  But, for now here we are back in Germany for the time being with at least another year to enjoy it.

Besides all the fun parts about the home leave trip like sharing a drink at our favorite craft beer bars with good friends, enjoying a proper steak, and an early Thanksgiving meal with family, one of the annual events of home leave is making the rounds to all our medical professionals to make sure we're still doing good health wise.  I was looking forward to this year's checkup because I had a question.

My last post on here was about a particularly brutal climb that almost did me in.  After that I started paying close attention to my performance on hills and during other activities like mountain trekking.  It became clear to me that something was up with my breathing.  In the past I assumed my complete meltdowns on hills had to do with overall fitness.  I assumed I was struggling because I was out of shape.  But, as the year passed this excuse didn't seem pertinent.  We were cycling every day and during our century training we were averaging 130km a week.  Our diet has changed to being mostly vegetarian.  My weight and other vitals were in the right places.  I was sleeping normal.  But, every single time I hit a hill on the bike, a set of stairs, or an uphill track while trekking I started struggling, big time.  Off the bike I manage, but always slow way down and need breaks now and then to catch my breath.  On the bike, things get bad on those hills.  For anything above a Cat 4, I often have to dismount to calm my breathing.

Then, one day we were climbing a hill at a particularly slow pace.  We had taken a break not long before for a snack and to replenish our water, but I was in a bad way already.  My husband led for a bit, then I took over, hoping that if I found a steady pace I could relax my breathing.  It wasn't working.  The wide spot in the road was a welcome sight and I pulled over, dismounted, and sat down, certain I was going to black out.  When I finally got back to a comfortable heart rate and breathing, I looked up at the hill, the road winding above me.  As I did so, a woman went past.  On a steel city bike.  In khaki shorts and tennis shoes.  She was breathing through her nose.  That was the last straw.  I was mad.

Something was definitely up.

So, I sent my doctor in Akron a note.  I have an amazing doctor back in Akron, and having her just an email away is a lifesaver.  Thank you, modern technology!  Anyway, after tracking my symptoms and performance it sounded to me that I might have been suffering from exercise induced asthma all this time.  She concurred with my theory and set me up for some tests when I came back to town.

Asthma tests are something else.  You spend two hours in a room with a technician blowing into a tube after inhaling a progression of medications as the tech instructs "BIG breath and..BLOW, BLOW, BLOW!"  All of that tests lung capacity.  People with asthma will have a marked reduced capacity during the test.  People without it will have the same results from beginning to end.  When I sat down with my doctor a few days later, she said, "I'm so glad you contacted me, because you totally have asthma!"  Apparently, I have had it my whole life, explaining why I could never run the mile in PE or keep up in any sports like soccer when I was a kid, hence being assigned more stationary positions like fullback.  I was under the impression that I wasn't "good at running" or that I wasn't "athletic" back then.  But as I've gotten older I've realized that being "unathletic" isn't a real thing.  My doctor confirmed.  She said we choose to be active or not.  Sure, not everyone is built to run a marathon or bench 250lbs, but everyone should be able to find something they can do comfortably that keeps them physically fit.  If you struggle despite being fit, then there is a medical reason for it.  Anyone should be able to exercise.

I don't know what my doctor thought, when I responded to to my diagnosis with, "Oh, thank God!"  I can't begin to describe the relief I felt with finally having a reason for why climbing nearly kills me, why I can't keep up in the mountains, why climbing the stairs to the top floor our house has me leaning against the door frame for a bit.   The thought of climbing no longer fills me with dread.  I know what will happen when I start heading up and I know why.  It's not because I'm a failure.  I have the tools to deal with it and now the odds are in favor of me getting to the top without passing out.  Sometimes an answer is all you need.  And, albuterol.

The mountains are my favorite place on earth.  Now, spending time in their heights shouldn't be such a struggle.

Yeah, folks, I'll be "doping" when I'm out on the roads.   Let me get that out there right now.  Along with my patch kit and PB sammies, I'll be packing an inhaler.  I've accepted that in order to keep this managed properly I have to reign in my riding when I have a respiratory illness to avoid aggravating the disease (hence why I'm typing this up today instead of HTFU on the bike with this head cold).  I shouldn't take up extreme altitude mountaineering either.  Sigh.  Oh well, I don't have the money for that anyway.  But, there is no risk of having to give up the bike.  I'm not expecting to take all the local QOMs, but climbing the stairs, yeah, I can do that now.

So, look out, Bavaria, as soon as I kick this darn cold I'll be back.  Here's hoping none of you in khakis and sneakers will pass me on a climb.  But if you do, let's be clear.  My chain slipped.

Fifteen Percent

Saturdays are the big ride days.  We haven't hit the big mileage yet.  This past Saturday was only 35 miles.  No big deal.  We could knock that out in about 2 hours, and be home in plenty of time to run errands.  I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what route to use for the century and decided that Saturday we would test out the terrain in one of the of the possible areas, a hilly, sparsely populated region east of the Main that's known for it's hiking and mountain biking.  There aren't that many villages, so traffic should be light.  The hills would be a challenge, sure, but challenges are good and it's not like there would be anything beyond a category 3.  They call the hills a "mountain range," but that's definitely a bit of an exaggeration to say the least.

We headed out about 8am.  The shot of espresso hadn't kicked in yet, and my eyes were watering like crazy, the way they always do on morning rides.  The route was completely new as soon as we crossed over the river.  There wasn't any moment along the way that we could warm up and ease into it.  People who aren't cyclists don't understand that being on the road requires 100% focus.  You have to watch everything, everything, cracks in the pavement, stones that can send you flying if hit just the wrong way, drainage grates, stuff that's fallen off of cars that can also send you flying, big tire slicing shards of glass, piles of sand that are always randomly spread across turns, tree branches, roadkill, oil slicks, piles of animal waste, mud, children who haven't been taught to look both ways before crossing the street, old people who never learned and have miraculously survived all these years, loose dogs, horses, various types of balls rolling out of playgrounds and driveways, other bikes, skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs....oh, yeah, and the cars.  We have to do a lot of thinking and thinking for everyone else around us.  We have to be three steps ahead.  It's like chess- fast paced, things could get really bad if you make the wrong move kind of chess.   It's not just the physical exertion of cycling that's tough.  Sometimes a quick pedal to the grocery store is more intense than a 4 hour training ride depending on what we encounter along the way.

Saturday's route passed a rather nice castle.
Castles make climbing better.

The first several miles of Saturday's ride was one of those intense, nonstop experiences.  Saturdays are the one day a week people can run errands and they have to start early.  Shops are closed on Sundays and most close before 1pm on Saturdays.  During the week, most close by 6pm.  If you work all week, Saturday morning is your one shot to get what you need.  The first stretch of the route was along a particularly busy main road.  So, we were hauling right off the bat.  Then, we hit a construction zone which closed one side of the road with no traffic signal or worker controlling the flow.  That had us sprinting uphill a good ways to avoid getting creamed by a car coming up over the top from the other direction.  Thankfully, there weren't any cars, but I was close to the red after that.  It took a while to recover.  It wasn't too much later that we were off that highway, but when we left the traffic, we were in the "mountain range."  The climbs weren't that bad, except for the two times I dropped my chain.  There were a couple of cat 4's.  The biggest climb was a steady 2.5 mile, category 3.  It seemed to go on forever, but it wasn't horrific.  None of the climbs were horrific.  Climbing isn't the soul crushing experience it used to be.  It just is what it is.  The longer they are, the more are tackled, the better it gets.  Cycling becomes something else.

Then, in the last 5 miles, I had my soul crushed.  On the profile the last bump was nothing, just a blip.  You can't really tell what a climb is going to be like from a profile, a grade percentage, a distance.  This one started humanely enough.  We shifted down and got into the rhythm.  I shifted down again a few minutes later.  Then again.  Then again.  The grade just kept getting steeper, crazy steep.  I was tired.  This was the fifth climb of the day and I didn't have it anymore.  I started paperboying a little.  My husband was doing the pulling.  I kept wishing he'd go a little faster.  I didn't have the strength to take a pull, but my front tire was millimeters from his rear tire.  I was afraid my weaving was going to take him down.  I couldn't come alongside since the road was too narrow.  For some reason, cars kept coming up behind on this little road to nowhere.  Didn't they have somewhere else to drive?  There's nothing up there but a barn!  I had a stale Haribo frog in my mouth.  I didn't have the energy to chew through it; I was too busy trying to breathe.  The frog was in the way of the breathing.  I tried shifting down again, but I was out of gears.  I pushed the frog into my left cheek and tried to slow down the breathing.  I was in the red, way into the red, and I was out of gears.  One more gear would have been enough.  I was mashing the pedals, my legs were on fire, and we were barely moving anymore.  Then it happened, the same thing that happens on every climb like this.  You think you see the top, only to have the hope ripped away when the top just reveals itself to be a false flat.  This was supposed to be the little climb.  Breathing was becoming an issue.  I wasn't getting the oxygen to keep the legs moving and the heart beating at a bearable rate.  I looked up from my husband's rear hub to his back and called out in a really high pitched, raspy voice, "Need to stop.  I need.  Break."

"Yeah, ok. Yes."  I was relieved to hear what sounded like relief in his voice.  I climbed off and laid my bike down in the grass,  my breathing was what could probably be termed as hyperventilating.  I bent over trying to slow it down.  The frog was gone.  I don't remember eating it.  A car was coming up the hill, flying actually.  I cursed.  I can't just quietly die up here on this hill without some driver flying past staring agape at my physical failings and the drool running in a ladylike manner down my chin.  Seriously, where the heck are these cars going?  I gulped down a ton of water and unzipped my jersey.  It was humid.  I should have worn a lighter-weight jersey.  Or something.

It took a few minutes to get back to feeling somewhat normal again.  We clicked back in and finished the climb.  It was a little longer before I could speak properly again, though.  We got back to the house and after a giant egg burrito and a cold glass of chocolate milk, I looked at the profile again.

Oh, so that's what a quarter mile with a 15% uphill grade feels like.

The Mountains in Our Minds

The trail branched off from the main route just outside the town, and after getting through that gauntlet of a town it's at this point in the route (the one I call Crosswind Way), that I settle in for a short recovery before the said crosswinds kick in after the turn onto the road.  I never gave the trail a second thought.  Except where it intersects the Mainweg, you can't see it.  It disappears into a grove of short, thick trees and the shade of the overpass.  It looks like one of those little branches that appear all along the cycle routes for taking local traffic into the outskirts of neighborhoods.

But, I am bored.  It's not that Crosswind Way doesn't have it's rewarding scenery.  It does.  It passes through a deep valley cut by the Main, covered in vineyards.  There are some red stone ruins dotting hill tops, flat river barges, small towns, and sweet smelling woods.  But, after time, even things like that become old hat.  I am itching for a change of scene and a change of wind.  A glimpse at the map indicated this trail would lead me down another valley into the ominous sounding Odenwald.  Ominous sounding forests are just what I need.  So, at the last second as I head down the hill out that town, I lean right and turn under the overpass.  There is no wind, for a bit, but as I come out of the shelter of hedges and farm buildings on the other side of the highway, it hits me full in the face.  The cross winds of Crosswind Way are now a headwind, the constant headwind of the Main Valley.  I shift into a smaller ring and got into the drops.  I don't see many people, just the occasional retiree on an old upright, with a "morgen."  I come out of the rhythm for a nod and a smile.  I'm just out to explore, no need to retreat too far into my head and ignore the world.  I'm finding a new one, after all.  I pass through a nondescript town, with gravel based businesses lining it's outskirts.   Gravel mining is a thing in these parts.  Shortly after exiting the town streets, I hit my first stretch.  I shift into the next smaller ring, but keep my hands on the hoods.  The faster I ride over the gravel, the smoother the ride and the less chance of wiping out on a loose spot.  My eyes search for a clean line around the holes and squishy patches and my tires find it.  I'm not a huge fan of gravel, just because of what it can bring- punctures but, once I'm on it, I can't help but not enjoy the rush of attacking it at full speed.  I'm out of the town, long out, the road ends at a T; no indication of which way the next town is.  That's the way you go exploring on a bike in Germany.  Pick a town name on a sign and follow the rest of the signs there.  I pause for a moment and pull the map up on my phone.  I could take the road on my right, or see where this gravel takes me to my left.  A huge flat bed truck carrying half a dozen tractors rumbles past throwing dust on me from the road.  I turn left.

The gravel ends in a parking lot for a shooting club.  A quick scan of the lot reveals a break in the trees where there should be another road which will take me on to my chosen town.  I hope this isn't one of those shooting clubs with the target course in the woods.  I follow the path, just a dirt single track now, dip below the parking lot, around a patch of fist sized gravel, over a footbridge and onto another gravel road.  The gravel continues for another several kilometers before petering out and depositing me in another town.  I have no idea which one, but the sign says my destination is still quite a ways off.  With the pavement firmly beneath my tires, I breathe a sigh of relief from the gravel rattling, and kick into a more civilized pace.  A turn here, a turn there, a camp ground, a group of bird watchers, a farmer straight off of a postcard sitting in the bed of his truck with a pipe in his mouth and his dog at his side.  The countryside rolls by.  The hills rise around me, no vineyards, just dark trees- the Odenwald.  As I round a bend a large hill looms up in the distance, red walls crown its brow and a tower perches on the crest.  Another castle.  But, this one is new, so I let my eyes linger on it for a bit, before the hill twists out of sight.  After all this time, I still have a thing for castles.  They are huge monuments to this experience.  Reminders I'm not in Ohio anymore, reminders not to take that for granted.

After thirty or so kilometers, I've arrived at my destination, but I don't know it yet.  I'm expecting to roll out into a town center, paved in cobbles, with a church in the middle, and a bench next to the church.  That's the usual choice for a break to take a snack and refill the bottles if I need to.  I don't need to yet and the way to the quaint center is hidden around construction barriers and passing local traffic.  I decide to take the easy way through the congestion and head straight at the intersection.  I'll sort the way to the church bench after I get out of this cluster.  But, I don't.

It's not long before the road takes a severe uphill grade.  I'm basically committed at this point without making a u-turn.  I'm definitely leaving the town, almost as soon as I arrived in it, and I'm going up. A wooden, hand painted sign on the right of the road points up the hill I've unintentionally arrived on.  It says "Berg."  I glance up to the top of this hill; just the hint of red stone peaks through the trees.  The berg I saw from the valley below.

Sometimes the mind does weird things.  Things that are huge, things that terrify us, that intimidate, just stop being a big deal.  The butterfly feeling never hits.  We say, "I'm not afraid of you today."  We don't know why, we just aren't.

I don't make a u-turn.  I stop thinking about locating the town center.  I want to see this castle instead, and do so I have to climb this hill.  So, climb this hill I will.  I focus.  My head in its weird non-panicky state says, "Find the rhythm.  Speed isn't rhythm.  Just go up the hill.  Just go up.  If your speedometer is reading single digits, who cares?  You're going up this hill.  When you get up there, and you will, your life will never be the same."  And I find the rhythm, or it finds me.  I'm in the sun, full on my back.  I breathe through my mouth.  A bead of sweat runs down my left temple and falls on my shoulder.  Switchback.  I'm in the shade.  I took the turn tight on the inside as a red hatchback passes.  I hear the telltale grind of dropped chain.  I roll into a wide spot on the side of the road and sort it out.  I must have bumped the shifter when I stood up in the turn.  I click back in and keep going up.  Sorry, I'm not going to let the dropped chain dissuade me.  I'm going up this hill.  Switchback.  Sun.  The grade steepens.  I downshift and put my hands on the tops.  I hear the sound of laughing children coming fast behind me, and then they're on me.  In two firetrucks.  They barrel past, a small head pokes out a window and looks back, waving.  Sorry, kid, I'd wave back, but I'm kinda in the middle of something.  Switchback.  Shade and a break in the grade.  But, the road is positively pocked with holes.  This will probably hurt on the way down.  I leave it in the low gear and spin my legs out a bit, swig a bit from the bottle before the next increase hits a few meters ahead.  Ok, I should probably fill my bottle at some point.  There are no more switchbacks, just a steady increase in the grade.  Sun.  Shade.  Sun. Shade.  The sound of water somewhere.

Sun.  The trees are below me, just the castle sits above.  I run out of road and find the fire trucks at the same time.  Their passengers are running around the playground at the base of the fortress.  I pass between these random emergency vehicles and smoosh my front tire into a parking lot filled with loose pea gravel.  I'm going so slow at this point, it doesn't matter.  It's like landing on a feather bed.  My bike and I swim out and make our way to the near vertical cobbled road leading up through the castle gate.  The cobbles are set in such a way, basically stepped, so vehicles and shoes have something to grip, but there's no way I'd be getting a bike up that.  A sign nearby say's don't even try.  So, I unclip and walk, pushing the bike along the path next to me.  Another sign advertises a museum and the toiletten, aka. places to refill my bottles.  We climb through the first gate into a courtyard with a cannon.  We stop and turn around.

All that emotion I expected to hit me at the start of the climb, finally arrives.  But, it's not the butterflies of fear, the choke of trepidation.  It's a lump in the throat.  It rises, and my eyes well up.  A big green landscape wraps itself around me and below me.  A big old castle stands behind me.  I got here on my bike, the whole way.  I climbed a hill, pretty darn big one, a category 4 actually, on my own because I wanted to.  Because I said I would.  Because I couldn't let this hill or any other scare me back down the road.  I climbed.  I climbed.  It went pretty good and here I am.

The mountains in my head had been defeated with that climb.  My life isn't the same.  After filling my bottles and having a quick snack, I headed home the way I came.  The descent down that hill was the most fun I can ever remember having on two wheels.  Descents are a reason to climb.  But, the climb itself is the real reason.  With every pedal stroke, we get higher, stronger in the body and in the head.  If this hill can be climbed so can others.  The road is wide is open now.  There is nothing to fear.

Don't believe me?  The next day I climbed two more hills just like it.

Stranger Things Have Happened, I Think

I'm pretty sure we all have things we hate, downright detest.  We probably have lists.  Well, I have a list.  When I was a kid my list was Mathematics (this included all branches therein, homework, and class), going to the orthodontist, piano recitals, and Easter dresses.  I loathed Math (or Maths as you may prefer) because I didn't get it, struggled with it from the time we began subtracting, and it was always the thorn in my report card.  The orthodontist, well, who really enjoys the orthodontist?  People sick in the head, that's who.  The fellow who "reshaped" my mandible and scarred a good portion of my childhood was old-school in his methodology.  His techniques included, and I kid you not, hammers, chisels, cement, and the employment of assistants with a disturbing lack of empathy.  While I'm glad I no longer resemble a bulldog, I can't say I ever warmed to the guy.  Piano recitals were just irritating.  Spending months on end practicing the same tired tune over and over again for the supposed entertainment of other parents who really only care about their child's performance always struck me as ridiculous.  And, Easter dresses?  That was just a matter of taste, the bane of the tomboy.  Since reaching adulthood, the list has certainly changed.  Math no longer troubles me, I have mastered the calculator and can successfully get through life.  The orthodontist hasn't been seen in over ten years and my mouth is quite happy about that.  I haven't touched a piano or publicly performed music in ages.   Of course, I haven't had an Easter dress since I began choosing my own wardrobe.

But there's still a list of preferred avoidances.  The list is mostly composed of food products like quiche and smoothies containing too much roughage.  Flying from US airports is on there.  Climbing hills on a bike is somewhere near the top of the list.  Like Math, I hate it because I struggle with it.  That's probably pretty lame of me.  I stopped hating Math because, basically, I no longer needed to do it.  I didn't "defeat" my Math issue by working harder at it, I just went through my formative years detesting about 100 minutes of every day spent in class and doing the work, having a pretty crappy attitude, then blissfully moving on once school was behind me having never really faced the beast.

I could very well just go about my cycling in the same way, tell myself I'm not built to climb hills and therefore never will successfully and avoid the hills at all possible.  Or.  Or, I could grow up a little.

A funny thing happened on Saturday.  The weather forecast was amazing so we planned a cookout with a few friends for the evening. We decided that an hour or so bike ride in the morning wouldn't be a bad idea given the evening's menu of hamburgers and beer.  It wasn't going to be a killer ride.  I was pretty beat after a full week of long rides and landscaping.  We were going to go easy.  We thought after having explored the major touring routes lately, that it was time to venture more "on road" into the smaller valleys.  So, we headed out.  Despite a Flemish headwind from the get go, things were going well.  After glancing at the map, we chose a 30km loop through some villages that would get us home in plenty of time to prep for our guests.  Google presented us with tantalizing "bike friendly, fit for grandma" roads.  All was going well until the second village.  Then, traffic started getting rather congested to the point we were track standing more than moving forward.  But, the map was pretty adamant that we would be in the clear once we hit the town limits.  I mean, there was a solid green line indicating a bike path next to the road.

There was no bike path when we got out of town.  In fact, this so-called bike friendly road was anything but.  It was a narrow road and a long, solid climb in heavy traffic.  My "Aaargh! Giant Hill!  I hate this!  I hate the world!  I hate everything!" switch was on the verge of getting flipped.  Then, it didn't.  I just kept pedaling.  I wasn't chipper about it, and I certainly wasn't flying, but my legs just kept doing what needed to be done.  When we got to the top, sure, I was hurting, but there we were.  There had been no stopping, there had been no walking.  And, you know what?  A thought crossed my mind.  "Hey, this is actually rather nice.  I think I sorta get the attraction."  Well, then it started pouring.  So much for the warm positive feelings and that beautiful forecast.

Then, we had to go down the hill to the next village.  Ok, I definitely get the attraction to climbing now.  If it hadn't been pouring buckets, my shoes weren't full of water, and if I hadn't been rather concerned about the husband riding on slicks...What am I saying? That descent was one heck of a ride!

After that it should have been pretty straight forward following the signs through the villages back to ours.  The trouble was, the weather just kept getting worse.  There was standing water on the roads, there was no sign of a let up, and it was getting progressively colder.  Once again, Google showed us an alternative "short cut"- solid green line, through forest, little to no traffic.  We should have known better.  I have to admit, I had a bad feeling when we turned onto the new route.  "Through forest" usually means tractor or logging road.  The forests are usually on top of large hills.  Such was the case.  This climb was brutal, vertical, positively evil.  Yeah, and there were still cars who were there for the shortcut, no speed camera advantage.  I was dying.  My poor legs, abused by a week of daily rides broken up with mulch spreading, shoveling, and rock hauling, were screaming.  It was torture.  It went on for miles.  I needed a break, also known as "photo opportunity."  But, we got back on those bikes and kept going, slowly, mind you, and we climbed that sucker.

The next descent wasn't so fun.  The road was tractor wide and it went straight down that hill all the way to the river, no turns, no pauses in the gradient.  It was still pouring.  There was mud everywhere.  I had a death drip on my brake levers.  Now it was my hands' turn to do the screaming.  That descent wasn't fun, it was freaking scary, especially when a tractor came at us full tilt.

We made it home, though rather a little worse for wear.  But, oddly enough, when we pulled into the driveway I didn't think back over the ride and focus on how horrible it was, how much it hurt, and how much I hate climbing.  We talked about how much fun that was.  I realized that actually I could do it.  With a little work and dedication, climbing would no longer be on the hate list.  I may never "dance on the pedals" up 11% grades, but I don't have to hate it.  I don't have to avoid it.  I do have the capacity to improve.  I could actually get to a point of enjoying it.

We'll see.  But, if I start praising quiche you should get concerned.

Friday Morning in the Village

When I think of good places, I think of the mornings there.  I'm not a morning person, so those days that I rise early and see places for what they are then without a pre-caffeine stupor are moments I remember clearly.  I remember a morning in Nice, walking the streets as the cafes were just opening on my way to a flea market.  The city was just waking up, people were going through their rituals, saying their greetings, just before things had really started that day.  It was a good morning.  I remember multiple mornings driving down the roads of Messinia in a Nissan Micra, a plastic cup of poorly diffused instant coffee sloshed next to me, the mist rising out of the olive groves, no one speaking, thoughts about the day wrapping around us.  Those mornings were beautifully painful.  They always started the same way, gut wrenching scenery, sleepy villages, old men and their prayer beads, really bad coffee, and thoughts.

We're three months into the German assignment.  I'm pretty sure it's the mornings I will recall with the most fondness when I look back 10, 20, 30 years from now.  A cup of perfect coffee sitting next to me, still.  The birdsong from the bush of sparrows outside the office.  Crisp, blue white skies and soft morning breezes.  A freighter with a German or Dutch flag chugging through the lock.  Swans flapping their massive wings against the water in takeoff sounding like the whomp-whomp of rotor blades.  Geese having a loud discussion of the day's territory. The next door neighbor going through her morning routine.  Tuesdays are cleaning day, Thursdays are for the garden, Fridays all the windows get opened.  There's a smell in the morning, an odd earthy, spicy odor coming off the river.  I wait until the afternoons after that's lifted to open my windows, but to each their own.

Joggers go by, singles and pairs.  When the sun is first coming up, it's the bike commuters who zip along, the sounds of clicking ball bearings and creaky chains telling the beginning of the day.  Dog walkers shuffle along the path beside the road, quietly.  Neither the dogs nor their owners seem particularly awake.  The village cats skitter through flower beds and along garden walls headed to wherever the schedule dictates.  Folks pass each other in the alley next to the house carrying eggs from the lady one block over who sells them from her front door.  Others carry fresh, still warm Brötchen from the bakery.  They all nod and say "Morgen!"  Some stop for a chat.  The cyclists that pass now are of the recreational sort, at the beginning of their rides, stretching the legs, smiles on their faces, and sun in their eyes.

Dew drips off grass blades and budding leaves.  The church bells ring in response to the ones tolling on the opposite riverbank.  Engines kick on and car doors slam.  Skateboards pass on the way to school.  The sun rises higher, the sky gets bluer.  I'm on the doorstep with a second cup of coffee, waiting for a package of...more coffee.  Sparrows pick at the grass between the bricks in the courtyard.  Two bikes rest against the garden wall, patiently waiting for a ride.  Laughter from somewhere around the corner.  A dog barking in the park.  Shadows getting shorter.  Sun warms orange tiled roofs.

Mornings aren't lost on me, the incurable night owl.  They're the time of promise, before the day has committed itself, while it's still an open book.  Here they're a perfect quiet peace.  They bring a smile, always, three months down the road.  As the day ripens, it goes in different directions, sometimes great, sometimes not so.  But, the mornings?

They always start out good and simple.  Life right now makes perfect sense.

Crossing Paths

The road wasn't really a road.  It was the type of two track we used to enjoy plowing up in our Wrangler back in the day.  By the looks of things, nothing of that size had come through this way in quite some time, just people, dogs, and the occasional mountain bike.  We were on foot.  We had to be on foot this time.  I didn't want to miss a single tree, leaf, rock, or mud puddle.  We were following someone, someone I never knew or met.  He had been long gone by the time I showed up on earth, but he is a part of who I am nevertheless.  Life has a funny way of working out.  Of all the places to find him, I never thought it would be here, walking through the mud up a hill that doesn't have a name to a village that could barely be labeled as such to see a view that really isn't that incredible compared to others we've seen.  Then again, it was the most incredible of all.

It was a couple of days into the last real battle his Infantry division would see during The War.  They had just crossed over the Main River that day and were techincally behind the Nazi lines.  The Nazis weren't there, however, they had all been called into the city of Aschaffenburg, about 15km down river.  It was the end of March 1945 and the war in Europe would be over in little more than a month.  Of course, he didn't know that, even though up until this point they had met with little resistance from the Nazi forces.  But, for some inexplicable reason they were holding Aschaffenburg with surprising resilience.  His Field Artillery Battalion traveled in support of an infantry regiment assigned to attacking the city from the south.  So, here they were up on the top of an insignificant hill preparing to fire the big guns at one of the final military strongholds of the Nazis.

He'd landed in North Africa in June 1943, in July he was in the invasion of Sicily, and in September he and his division invaded Salerno.  In January of 1944, his division was ordered to invade behind the Gustav Line at Anzio.  They'd been dug in during that terrible siege for four months.  Next, in August, they landed in Southern France to begin the advance towards Germany.  They crossed the Belfort Gap, the Moselle River, the Mortagne River, and the Zintzel River, before they finally broke through the Siegfried Line on March 17, 1945.  By now, most of his friends that had landed with him in Africa had been killed.  But, after meeting little resistance since France, the men of his division began to think that they may make it home.  He had begun to make plans about life after the War.  He and his best friend Eddie had served together in the same Battery since basic training.  They talked about opening a car dealership back in New Jersey.  He'd written his fiancée about setting up the guest room for Eddie so he'd have a place to crash in a city that would be flooded with returning troops.  All they had to do was stay alive and wait for the fall of Berlin, which as this rate wouldn't be too far off.  Perhaps, if they were lucky, they'd get out of being sent to the Pacific.  But, plans change and war is unpredictable.

They crossed the Rhine on March 26th.  It was during that historic crossing that Eddie had been shot and killed right next to him.  It was a cruel twist of fate.  So cruel, he could barely bring himself to write home about it.  All he could say was to forget setting up the guest room.  Eddie wasn't coming home.  Now, here he was on this stupid hill a few days later preparing to bombard a city that for some reason just refused to accept the obvious and surrender.  Many of the men hadn't felt this low since Anzio.  More than likely, this was the worst he'd ever felt.  They'd hit that city with artillery for several more days to come.  The southern assault worked and the line was broken, but still the soldiers holding Ascaffenburg refused to give in.  By the end of the battle the American infantrymen were fighting hand to hand, from house to house with not only soldiers but civilians who answered the edict from Berlin to fight for the Fatherland to the death.  The battle lasted ten days.  When the city was surrendered on April 3rd, it was barely anything more than a rubble heap.  By then he was just outside of the city itself and the big guns were finally silent.  The massive Schloss Johannisberg was in ruins.  To the him and his fellow soldiers, it couldn't have seemed like anything more than a waste.  Too many people had died for nothing more than the twisted ideology of psychotic tyrants.

They didn't stay in these parts long.  They moved on to Nuremburg next and on April 29 members of his division liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp.  Two days later they captured Münich.  They'd be there on V-E Day and mercifully were spared that inevitable removal to the Pacific when Japan surrendered in August.  He'd get to go home after all.  He married his fiancée shortly after he returned.  They had two children.  He went to college and would go on to open that car dealership.  But, he never really came back from Europe.  The man who left for the War in 1943 was not the man who came back to New Jersey in '45.  He would still talk to anyone he met on the street, he was still unfailingly kind, he still had a sense of humor.  But, he had demons too, demons he picked up in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, France, and a particularly nasty one that showed up while crossing the Rhine.  They kept him distant from his loved ones, they kept him from talking about the war, they drove him to the bottle and alcoholism.  It was thanks to those demons that he died long before he should have, long before I showed up to know him and have him tell me about this hill himself.

Nearly 69 years later, I stood on that hill too.  I learned about it not from family stories or old letters.  I learned about this hill from a US Army map stuck in a report about the Battle of Ascaffenburg.  I'd been reading the report to learn about where I live, not to find my grandfather.  As fate would have it, this hill is three miles down river from where I live, overlooking a town I ride my bike through regularly and across the river from where we get our groceries.  I'd been crossing paths with my grandfather almost every day, and I'd had no idea until I saw that map.  So, in some way I thought standing on this hill and looking out over a view he'd seen too would give me a glimpse into his life.  The only smoke I saw was from chimneys.  The only sounds came from children laughing in the village below and birds in the trees above me.  The view was of a quiet countryside.  It was the same hill, but it was not the same place.  Fifteen kilometers downriver, Aschaffenburg is a bustling city.  The castle is rebuilt.  The Germany I see, the Germany I live in, is a far cry from the one my grandfather saw.

So, I lit a candle.  I lit it not only for my grandfather who I've only known in photographs, but for all the men who's pictures hang on walls or who's names are inscribed on memorials.  I lit it to thank him and them for being willing to face the bullets and the bombs and the demons to stop a terrible evil so that the view I see can be only described in one word:  peaceful.

Sixty-nine years is a long time, and then again it isn't.  It's all too easy to acknowledge the past in passing, glance at memorials, pause at fluttering flags.  But slabs of marble don't always tell the stories that need telling.  Sometimes the landscape is the better bard.  I didn't see my grandfather's ghost up there, but I felt him just for a second or maybe I heard his voice in the sounds of birds and children.  "We fought here so you could walk here.  Don't forget us."

No, Grandfather, I won't.  Until I see you on the other side, I'll meet you at all the perfect and peaceful views you've given me.

New Year, New Digs

We've been at our new location in Bavaria for just over a month now.  Despite the usual hiccups that come with moving to another country, things have been going very well for us.  This time we have a lot of support, not only from the relocation agents, but from my husband's co-workers and our new neighbors.  We have been overwhelmed and moved by the expressions of hospitality from the people in our town.  I can't begin to express how it feels to be told by someone you meet on the street that you are welcome when you're new, don't know a soul, or speak the language.  It means the world to us to be greeted with smiles and friendly handshakes when we step into the local pub or bakery.

Miltenberg, Bavaria

For most of the month, we were spared winter weather which provided a wonderful opportunity for long exploratory bike rides along the Main and into the countryside.  So far, cycling in this area has been a sheer joy and the only thing stopping me from heading out everyday is a never ending pile of laundry that won't wash itself and the knowledge that every bike ride this time of year means an hour of bike washing afterwards.  There just isn't enough daylight hours in the day.  But, the days I can get out on the bike in the sunshine are the best days.  About two weeks ago, I headed out on my first solo ride.  The weather was so perfect and the route was so beautiful, I ended up riding 50km.  If it hadn't been for the encroaching sunset, I would have kept on going.  I stopped in the city of Miltenberg for a snack, and as I strolled the cobbled old town, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was to be there and what an extraordinary experience we were having.  As I headed back home, I was the happiest I can ever remember being.  I'm pretty certain that was the best bike ride I've ever had.  It wasn't an epic ride; the route was mostly flat.  I didn't suffer; the weather was warm and the sun came out frequently.  Will I look back on that ride and remember it as a supreme challenge that I overcame?  No.  I will remember it as a perfect, beautiful, liberating experience on the bike.  It was a blessing of a ride, plain and simple.  It was the way bike riding should be.

Johannesburg Castle as seen from the cycle path in Aschaffenburg 

While we still have some loose ends to tie up around the new house and pictures still need to be hung, we're looking forward and planning for another exciting year of exploring Europe.  We hope for some Alpine hiking, some Danish cycling, and a whole lot of sightseeing in this beautiful continent.  I hope all of you have a great year ahead too.  Here's to a fantastic 2014!