Ich bin ein Berliner

Not really, actually didn’t even come all that close to Berlin, but I just got back from a week of vacationing in Western Europe in Germany and Holland. My base was a small town in Western Germany called Aachen. Aachen is home to about a quarter of a million people and only a few miles from the the Belgian and Dutch borders. The world equestrian championships brought me to Aachen, even though I didn’t attend one event of the horses. I was visiting a friend from the USA who was sent here to work for the week.

Aachen is a charming little town. It’s actually rather historic as well, as it was Charmalagne’s most favorite city and it was very historically significant during the Roman times (coming from Jerusalem it gives you a sense of how broad the roman rule really was). It’s built on a series of mineral water/hot springs and, I gather, has been used as a place to soak tired bones for thousands of years. Needless to say, I’m well rested.

Some other thoughts:

*** Germans like their beer. People drink beer constantly, old/young, men/women, every one was drinking at pretty much every hour of the day. Each little town, neighborhood, street has little bars that, while not crowded, have people in them whenever they are open. The beer is rather good as well, far better than any beer I’ve had in Israel.

*** Took a day trip to the city of Koln (Cologne), which is about an hour from Aachen and one of the biggest cities in Germany. Cologne is right on the Rhein River and has first class museums, philharmonic and boy do I smell good! If you had visited Cologne 125 years ago you also would have been able to see the tallest building in the world. (not even the tallest in Cologne anymore) but the main cathedral still is the center of the City. It’s a rather impressive Cathedral and I trekked my sore legs to the top of one of the Cathedral’s towers. The Cathedral is also the most visited spot in all of Germany. It was a remarkable cathedral, having never really traveled Europe before I sure got a sense of the

*** Made the mistake of order traditional German food at a local Aachen Brauhaus. As you can probably gather pork products are not all that common in Jerusalem (though you can get them) so after diving into the “Butcher’s Platter” one evening -- all of Israel was laughing at me -- I soon became violently ill.

*** Was able to experience first hand the remarkable, and I do mean remarkable, European Train System. Clean, easy, effective, a great way to get around the area.

*** Finally, I can’t help but acknowledge some of my personal feelings about being in Germany (especially coming from Israel). It is a weird parallel between recognizing that Germany is a modern, western and progressive country and also realizing that this was a Country that attempted a full scale genocide of the Jewish People. For me the most poignant moments had to do with the train stations, the same tracks that I traveled on, only 60 years ago were used for deportations.

All in all a great vacation, I’m about to hit full stride and will continue to blog about once a week. Questions, comments thoughts, please share.