After taking Wednesday off to visit with the family and watch Germany beat Turkey, we headed out on the trail of the Staufer again on Thursday.
This time we drove to Hohenneuffen, another of the Staufer castles. It's located above the town of Neuffen and is much more complete than Hohenstaufen. Once again, the view is spectacular. This castle sits on an outcropping of the Swabian Alb. To get there you have to climb onto a plateau that sits about 500 feet above the surrounding valleys. Then you have to go onto the spur upon which the castle sits. Today there is a nice road, even though the last half of a kilometer is on foot, with a bridge across the shallow gorge that separates the spur from the rest of the plateau. Everything is forested and overgrown, but in the Middle Ages the approach to the castle would have been kept clear so that attackers wouldn't have had any place to conceal themselves.
We spent a couple of hours at Hohenneuffen with me wandering around taking pictures and just generally poking into as many places as I could, climbing stairs, going through passages, checking out the case mates, etc. Since there was a nice restaurant in the shell of the castle we had lunch. On Tuesday I had had Schnitzel (breaded and pan-fried veal cutlet - it has nothing to do with hot dogs, not even the Viennese variety called Wiener Schnitzel). Today I had Maultaschen soup and a salad. Maultaschen are a noodle stuffed with ground beef, egg, parsley and a few other herbs. They can be fried or cooked in a broth to make soup. I particularly like Maultaschen in soup. It's a Swabian specialty and delicious.
After lunch we walked back to the car and headed to Bad Urach. Originally I had wanted to visit the ruins of Hohenurach. (Okay, for you non-German speakers, the compound Hohen- means "upper" or "high", so Hohenstaufen, Hohenneuffen and Hohenurach are all places that you have to climb to get to.) However, when we got to Bad Urach I realized that I already had all the information I needed to be able to add detail to my adventures of Gottfried von Lichtenstein. We did park for a little bit while I roamed the city center a bit taking pictures of the old part of town. All my pictures of Hohenurach are from below. What I really needed to know, though, was the lay of the land - especially the part between Hohenneuffen and Bad Urach. From Huelben it's all downhill to Bad Urach, dropping over 700 feet into the Erms Valley. Parts of it are quite steep and invisible to both Hohenneuffen and Hohenurach (an important element in the story).
We didn't stay long because we needed to get back to Stuttgart. Arlene does counseling, and she had some clients to meet and then supper to prepare. Thursday evening Thamara (the second child and only daughter) and her children came over. We had a wonderful time. Thamara is a teacher at the Freie Evangelische Schule, so we traded stories about students and parents. Both students and parents behave essentially the same everywhere. I even showed some of my students' video projects that are on my computer. Unfortunately I was there during their big not-quite-end-of-the-year testing week so couldn't visit classes. German teachers have to give tests in their own classes and then go to other schools to give oral tests to other students. That way each student has at least two teachers who evaluate them, one who know the student and one who doesn't. Last year I was in town during summer vacation, so Thamara took me on campus for the grand tour. I'll post a couple of pictures from that so you can see the school.
Friday was my shopping day. Everyone else had things to do, so I hopped on the Strassenbahn and headed downtown - literally. The City sits on the Neckar River within a bowl of hills. Most of the suburbs are uphill, including where my German family lives. My chief goals were to find a present for my nephew and exchange some old German Marks that I had found. It seems that my nephew has become quite the musician. He plays clarinet and bassoon, chiefly bassoon. When they were in the US his parents got a good deal on a bassoon. It was the first time he had picked on up, and by the end of the second day he was playing the bassoon part from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by ear. His orchestra teacher at school listened to him play and immediately switched him from clarinet to bassoon in the orchestra. He has continued playing now that he's back in Kenya and is in a symphony orchestra - and also in the 8th grade. He's taking private lessons, and his teacher told him he needed a reed scraper. So, my job was to find one. I participate in an online forum for German and English and had asked there. The closest anyone knew was in Gaggenau, over 90km away. But at least their online catalog told me what I needed to ask for: Schabemesser. Franz found a couple of music stores in the yellow pages, so I called. The first place I talked to didn't carry them and suggested I try in Tuebingen, 45km away. Tuebingen would have been doable, though inconvenient. Gaggenau was totally out of the question. Fortunately, the second place I called carried Schabemesser and was located in the Koenigsbau on Schlossplatz, i.e. about as "downtown" as you can get and easily reached. They were very helpful and showed me a number of possibilities and explained what I needed. If you're ever looking for anything related to music in Stuttgart, go to Berthold and Schwerdtner. I recommend them highly.
The other task was also easily accomplished. Most banks no longer accept DM, so I had to go to the Landeszentralbank (State Central Bank), also downtown. They exchanged my Marks for Euros with no questions asked. Then I wandered a bit and went on a little shopping spree. VfB Stuttgart - the Stuttgart soccer club - has a shop downtown, so I had to go in and get a couple of things to help decorate my room at school. One item was a VfB shawl from last year when they won the Bundesliga championship. Another was a Euro2008 European Cup shawl. I also bought myself a polo shirt and my nephew a T-shirt. Not only does he play bassoon quite well, but he's on the school soccer team. He gave up rugby this year so he could concentrate more on his music and chess club - and I'm sure my sister-in-law is relieved!
I didn't need to do any shopping for my niece, because I had sent her gift ahead with my mother when she flew to Kenya in the middle of June, and I had a gift for my brother in my bag. So I decided to get my sister-in-law's present in Vienna. [This last paragraph added just in case any of them actually read the blog. (-: ]
When I had finished I headed back so I could be there in time to meet Urs and his wife. Urs is the third child (second son) and had met me a the airport, but we hadn't had time to spend together all week. So, we had dinner and enjoyed the fellowship.
Sorry I don't have more pictures of Stuttgart, but for the last couple of years the city has been full of construction and preparations for various festivals and events. This year it was the Euro2008 match. Maybe I'll get some pictures next year.
Saturday morning I spent packing. Then after lunch Franz took me to the airport for my flight to Vienna. Getting checked in and going through security was a breeze. The security guards were definitely thorough but at the same time much friendlier than the ones at LAX. The German Wings flight was nice and smooth, but I did meet my first stinky European (and I once again mean that literally). After I had gotten seated at the window, a guy came in and sat on the aisle. When he took off his jacket I got a strong whiff of body odor. There used to be a joke about the difference between Americans and Europeans: Americans bathe every day and go to the store once a week; Europeans go to the store every day and bathe once a week. That has changed in the meantime, except this guy seemed to be holding with tradition - and bath day must have been the previous Sunday. Fortunately I opened the air nozzle full blast and didn't have to endure the smell the whole flight. When we got off I made certain he was some distance ahead of me.
Arrival in Vienna, customs and immigration were all without incident, and I caught the S-Bahn from the airport. But you'll have to wait until next time to find out what I've been doing in Vienna. Until then, Gott segne Euch alle.
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