Nürnberg & Ansbach.

My current host sister, Verena, is studying medicine at the Univeristy of Erlangen - in the area around Nürnberg, a Bavarian city in the 'county' of Franken. A few weeks ago, over the end of my easter break, my host mom Ulli and I took a night and went and visited Verena in her dorm room and did a little touring of Nürnberg and the Frankish capital, Ansbach. Franken is extremely well known for both it's amazing wine and beer. Driving on the way there, I enjoyed a 'Schweinschnitzel' - a pounded pork meat with a nut breading on it, so good food is also pretty important. Nürnberg is extremely well known for it's Bratwursts and Lebkuchen. Nürnberg is probably the only city where you can buy Lebkuchen year round - otherwise it comes out on the shelves to be enjoyed before Christmas. Although we didn't get a chance to visit Nürnberg's palace of justice, there is still a lot to city in the central city. Nürnberg was host to the 'Nuremberg Trials' after WWII, where the Allies tried the Nazis after their defeat (in Nuremberg's palace of justice, or 'Nürnberger Justizpalast'). Hitler also used this well-known WWII building to try protesters against the Nazi regime during the war, and the city itself was where Hitler got his 'national socialism' ideas started. During the middle ages and later Imperial times, along with the city of Ulm, Nürnberg was one of the most important trade cities in central Europe. The city is home to an Imperial castle flanking the city's wall, and many Emperors spent their time in organizing trade and meeting with other international representitives in this city. I found the 'Fachwerk' houses really beautiful here (the typical German architecture with white stone walls & dark wood beams in between), and although extremely cold and wet when we were there (I borrowed Verena's winter jacket), a beautiful city. You can see that many of the old German houses were destroyed in the war (replaced by boring brick brown or gray buildings), but many churches are still standing and the traditional German life is easy to imagine here. I found the city surprisingly quiet (despite being one of the bigger cities in Bavaria), and a it seemed to have a very 'literature' atmosphere to me. It would have been perfect to sit on a bench and read a newspaper, or a book in a nice Café. Even while shopping a little bit during the day, I felt much more reasonable and less worried about a long line I had to wait in.

Looking at the Pegnitz river towards the outskirts of the city - The small tower is the house of the 'Hanger', a man of who had broken the law and as punishment was forced to hang the people breaking death sentence laws, here on this bridge (more of a Middle Ages thing . . . but I still found that idea sort of eerie).

The Pegnitz river.

The city's wall.

'Fachwerk' Houses.

On the top of the 'Burg', or castle looking over the city.

The Fachwerk hostel in castle/castle surroundings. Pretty nice, hu?

The "Schöner Brunnen", or beautiful fountain (also called the golden fountain) in the main market area of Nürnberg. The fountain is from the gothic era, and a small ring on one of the grates has been turned for centuries by passerby hoping to bring them luck (I did it too, but I'm not telling my wish! Then it won't come true).

The Glockenspiel in Nürnberg (you can see the kings dancing in a circle above).

Can you imagine spending a night over the river? If I'm right, that's on old hotel, or German 'Gasthaus'.

The St. Lorenz catholic church in Nürnberg. The lucky church was not badly harmed in WWII, but is having troubles today with restorations and keeping the roof stabil above the altar. It was built during Emperor Karl the 4th's reign, a new gothic/end of the romantics church.

We spent a good amount of time walking around in Nürnberg, visiting the churches in the central city, the double city wall, the castle, an old literature cafe, and the market where we enjoyed some wonderful strawberries (in spite of the cold rain). The famous German artist Albrecht Dürer (known for his hare painting) was born in the city of Nürnberg.

Driving past the 'Faber-Castell' castle, who are old nobles that still live on and own the grounds (yes, Faber-Castell as in the well-known pen maker).

Also on our trip, we visited the city of Ansbach. The fairly small town has a sort of quiet enchantment to it, and introduced to me kindly the differences in Allgäu (my part of Bayern - Lederhosen, climbing and hiking in the mountains, traditional sweet pancakes 'Pfannkuchen' and 1 Liter beers) and Franken (wine, wine, wine - beer, beer, beer, really great food, small loping green hills, and yet another accent to learn). Ansbach was home to Kaspar Hauser, a well known German figure. Kaspar Hauser was discovered at the age of 16, where people found he had spent his entire life sheltered from Society. Theory says that Hauser was in line of inheriting some sort of throne, a position that the family or parents obviously didn't want him getting. Repeated attempts at murder against him finally succeeded in December 1833, after being found (believed to be in between the ages of 15-17) in 1828. Kaspar Hauser Syndrome was actually the german term for Autism (or the beginning of an understanding, therefore explanation and term of Autism), until 'Austismus' became the standard word for the modern German language (similar to the English word). Ansbach was nice though, a spontaneous ctiy we decided to visit with a hidden history.

At the Ansbach Hofgarten with Ulli, which I thought looked a lot like Schönnbrunn in Vienna given the yellow of the building. It has a quite large, pretty garden.

The old and the new - Fachwerk Hauses and H&M.

ITALY!

Herbert, Ulli, Verena, Me and Johanna in Venice.

My current host father, Herbert, is originally from 'Süd Tirol', or the northern part of Italy. In his quest to become a doctor (and the bad reputations of doctors in Italy), Herbert moved towards Germany to start a living, and to study and practice medicine. All of Herbert's relatives still live in the small city of Neumarkt (even smaller than Silver Bay) in Tirol, and the family spends many vacations in Italy - including every Easter. Given I have the lucky chance to have stayed with Müllers over Easter, I got the chance to go with to Italy. And since they just hadn't seen Venice (and the city of Padua, where we stayed in a hotel) in years - we just had to visit Venice as well.

WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS MANY PICTURES!!!!
(In such a beautiful land, you continually try to capture it and keep it forever, and in a few of my pictures it worked).

Süd Tirol (Southern Tirol) actually belonged to Austria years ago. Napolean gave Tirol to Bayern as a friendly gesture, where the famous Andreas Hofer and the people of Tirol stood up and fought against the Bayerisch as the soldiers attempted to take their children away to join the military. The theater performance I am participating in this summer revolves around this time in History. After the World War II, Tirol ended up being given to Italy. Mussolini attempted to make the region 'Italian' in transferring many of the people from Sicily to the area and by building Italian houses and buildings and such. Tirol is now a great mix of German and Italian culture. I would say more than half of the population is German speaking, and the other half or less Italian (as a mother language) speaking. Tirol has German schools and they take German tests (Abitur) to graduate, but must also take Italian and test out in certain levels of Italian proficiency depending on what type of career they'd like to follow. I was quite worried I wouldn't understand a word of what they spoke, but the Müller family is all German speaking - so no worries. The accent is pretty funny though, it sounds like a mix between Swiss and Bayerisch dialect, even the women. That gets sort of hard to follow sometimes. Tirol is a beautiful land though, full of valleys tucked right into the famous 'Dolomite Mountains', where the Three Teeth are found. During our time there, we didn't do much mountain climbing (to my relief), but a tiny bit of hiking, and being in the mountians the entire time is gorgeous enough - you dont need to climb them.
We spent less than a week in Italy (well . .. Italy and Süd Tirol, Tirol doesn't count as 'real' Italy) during my Easter Break (which was 2 weeks total). We drove down to Neumarkt on Thursday the 9th, which took about 4-5 hours, and drove back home on Tuesday. We stayed with Herberts mother 'Oma Anna', who luckily had room to house the family of four kids, me, and Herbert and Ulli. The now older woman still spends her time cooking on an open fire stove, and we were greeted with extroadinarily yummy 'omelleten', or Pfannkuchen (like thin pancakes, or crepes) with jam inside. She also still gets around with her bike where she travels 20km easily with her over 80 year old self, and I dont believe she's been out of the city many times before. She loves to collect things, mainly antiques, and ended up collecting so much that she started a museum in Neumarkt with artifacts from older centuries, including from certain Emperors of Austria, which I found pretty cool. Their family is larger in Neumarkt - old Uncle Anton greeted my by outraging about how he'd read in the news that Mrs. Obama had grabbed the queen of England by the shoulder to greet her. Also included were Herbert's siblings, and the cousins. I was happy to get to see the little 'Katharina and Magdalena' who are about the age of my own cousins in Montana - I'm not around little ones much over here. It was also really cool that Verena and my other host siblings have so many cousins their own age - it makes family functions that much more fun. Phillip and Maximillian (Maxi) are two very Italian looking boys, Phillip one who loves gesturing like his hands like typical Italians (I must tell, many cliches are often true), and seems to love riding with his vespa/roller (which Italians learn to drive in school at 14 - everybody has one), and loves his beer. That's not Italian though, that's Süd Tirol. Birgit and Fabian are from another sibling of Herbert's - Birgit is studying in Vienna and Fabian in Innsbruck. Those are probably the two most of the most common Universities for students from Tirol.
It really was great to be able to celebrate Easter in somewhere so beautiful - except for Friday, spent in Venice, the weather was gorgeous for us. One can begin to understand the Italian culture when you see that the weather is almost always perfect - warm during the day and cool at night. It makes it easy to be the fashion capital of the world when you have perfect weather. Speaking of which, I dont know how anyone could attempt to beat an Italian woman in a heels walking contest. They can wear heels like no other - and all over the city as well. Italians always look good. And they do have pretty amazing food.

In Neumarkt with the little Katharina - I dont think I saw her without a smile the entire time.

Magdalena with Johanna's glasses that became so popular.

Johanna, Ulli, and Verena in front of Oma's house.

Johanna and Verena in the backyard.

The streets of Neumarkt - notice how under each building there's a sort of walkway that appears as a tunnel - I found it quite cool because on hot summer days you stay cool and on rainy days you stay dry.

Visiting Oma's museum - this is an old style toilet I found quite funny.

In the Museum, an old style Italian roof. At that time, the leeward side (I believe) was open to let in more cool air in the summer, and to let out the thick moisture in the winter. It doesn't snow much in Italy - I dont think a roof like that would work well in Minnesota.

The catholic church in Neumarkt where we went to church on Sunday for Easter.

Oma's house.



Friday morning early we drove to Venice. The city is just absolutely gorgeous - I was so impressed with the architecture and relaxing atmosphere. Given it wasn't July, there weren't too many tourists, but given the insane amount of tiny little canals and streets, you can easily escape the crowds. I believe Venice is about 200, 000 people. Venice was built by the Romans, or Roman refugees - they took huge wooden stilts and drilled them into the Adriatic sea and built streets, buildings, and an entire city on top. Although the city's wonderous buildings are now fairly faded and being eaten away by the moisture of the area, the warm colors are still visible, and it really is so that you have to move your way around mostly on boat. We took the 'buses' to get around - medium sized boats with normal bus stops along the Grand Canal and the Laguna. We spent the morning visit Marco Platz, where the famous St. Marco church is (St. Matthew), a work to just be admired. Also on St. Marco is the 'world clock' and a cafe where famous writers and artists once sat, such as Hemingway, amid the many pigeons, government buildings, and good shopping. We also visited two churches (given Ulli's absolute LOVE of church visiting, both dedicated to Marie Magdalena), the Jewish 'Ghetto' of Venice, the Bridge of Sighs (named by the sighs the prisoners made as they saw their last views of sunlight), went for a gondola ride (a short one across the river - the real black ones along the canals cost hundreds, or very expensive in any case), and ate at a really great restaurant. I found Venice the perfect city to just completely relax and lose yourself in - it's not the city where you need to go look at this museum and visit this place, etc - but you spend half your time just walking around all of the city streets to just see the beauty of the city itself, which is more of what we did. I was most certainly not dissapointed, you just have to sort of stare in awe and smile at everything. Plus, it's always lovely to be around water so often. I would not have trusted myself to go in however, it looked incredibly green/brown/blue with all sorts of algae, and I never did really quite figure out how the whole restroom system worked. The water stays surprisingly still though, even if it does fluctuate in how high it gets often.

Driving to Venice (or in German - Venedig, in Italian - Venezia)

Johanna, Verena and I in Venice.

The Bus Station.

Ulli and Herbert on the 'bus'.

Along the Grand Canal.

The building with red covers on the windows is the main market in Venice.

The Rialto Bridge along the Grand Canal

Gondola drivers!

Riding along the Grand Canal.

Salute=Cheers, Salut=Hello/Goodbye . . . this is actually one of the 'bus' stops.

St. Maria della Salute

'San Marco Piazza'

The world clock - characterized by Byzantine style blue background with gold stars, and the zodiac signs.

San Marco

The crazy birds of Venice!

One of the paintings/mosaics on San Marco.

The Bell Tower in St. Marco Piazzo

'Basilica'

Venetian canals!

World Famous Venice Theater 'La Fenice'.

Verena and I walking around in the city.

Along the canal.

Old Roman statues, representing slaves or the 'blacks' of Venice by his nose (if I remember the Herbert's story correctly).

Along the canal.

In front of one of the many mask stores (Carnival is celebrated pretty magnificently here).

Lunch at a small Venetian restaurant (I had gnocchi, and for an appetizer a typical Venetian food - cod with polenta, fancified).

Visiting the 'IstitutoVeneto diScienzeLettereedArti' - Venice Institute. They had some great gardens outside.

The Institute.

Watching a construction crew help keep the city alive.

On the Grand Canal- if I'm right, the Rialto Bridge.

Waiting for a gondola ride across the canal - The really fancy black gondolas are super expensive, but you can (fairly normally priced) easily ride across the canal.

Sitting in the gondola, I got yelled at because I stood up - I'm sure they just hate tourists. But somehow, I suppose you would just have to get used to them.

'High Class' Gondolas. Unfortunately, I didn't hear anyone sing while I was there. Maybe I just didn't stay long enough into the night.

Looking down the canals.

Cafe in the Ghetto - Beautiful lilacs.

Hanging laundry up to dry! (Typical Venetian . . . )

Pretty awesome architecture.

Out on the Lagoon.

Looking at the graveyard - on an island.

Along the lagoon - handlers and shoppers with their wares.

Looking at the Bridge of Sighs (and a couple trying to take a picture) - the buildings around it were being renovated when we were there.

Sundown begins - horizon of the industry portion of Venice.


On Friday night we went to the city of Padua to stay in a hotel and visit the city as well. Venice/Padua are actually called the Venice-Padua Metropolis. The city was fairly traditional Roman looking, which was pretty cool. We went out for amazing pizza on Friday night, Italian gelato to follow. Saturday was a full program - we visited the Basilica in Padua, some Roman ruins and the famous artistic work the 'Scrovegni Chapel', and I experienced an Italian market. You can buy pretty much everything on one of these, and for extremely cheap. The funny thing is, the quality isn't all that horrible. I was quite pleased. Scarves for 1€ is always good, although I probably would be smarter not asking how it became to be so cheap. After visiting Padua we drove back to Neumarkt (Süd Tirol) to 'get a good nights sleep' before Easter - the cousins and hung around at one of their houses talking for a long while.

The Basilica in Padua.

Old Roman water pipe ruins.

Looking at artist Giotto's painting in the 'Cappella degli Scrovegni', or Scrovegni Chapel. The work was actually completed in the Middle Ages by this Italian painter (ca 1300), which is why it is such an accomplishment. In the times of the middle ages, such vibrant color spectrums and detail in the people's movement and faces (even drawing tears on the women's faces during the 'massacre of the innocents') were not a common occurence, and Giotto was the first painter to predict such an exact painting of 'the damned' . Giottos work was therefore fairly revolutionary for his time, making the Chapel one of the greatest painting works in Europe - the entire room is painted with Jesus' Crucifixtion and the life of Mary. It certainly was impressing.

The picture above is inside the University of Padua (Università degli Studi di Padova), which was really cool to see. (Note: in most museums, etc we weren't allowed to take pictures). The University here was the first (if not one of the first) University in Europe to begin practicing Anatomy and who began studying the human body. The University (as far as I understood the very heavily accented and hard to understand Italian tour guide) is also the 2nd University in Italy, and the 3rd formed in the world. People like daVinci, given it was then illegal, would take the dead bodies from graveyards and bring them into the large lecture room (fit for 200 or so students) to do demonstrations. An animal would be strapped to the table beneath the human dissection table, and if the police came they would just turn the table around and let the human float off into the canal system. Pretty horror-like actually. Galileo also taught at the University for 18 years, which I must note that he claimed were the 'best of his life'. He had a special podium built for his lectures (which we got to see), because so many came to take part in his teachings (including many Baron's sons and future Emperors and the works). The University has made extreme advancements in medicine, including many teachers and/or students were their own discoveries or inventions devoted to the practice. It was cool to see this extremely old University - it had traces from each time period since it was started, mostly Roman and Mussolini.

Visiting the market in Padua. All I can say is, you poor chickens.

Picnic in the University's garden in Padua.

The Basilica of St. Anthony (in Padua).

Verena and Johanna on a stop as we were driving back to Süd Tirol. We ended up driving along 'Gardersee', THE tourist spot for Germans- especially from Southern Germany.

At the 'Burg' where we stopped to have coffee - the small palace/fort was sitting in the middle of this lake. There are many, many Burgs just tucked right into the mountains in Tirol - I have no idea how Herbert can remember the names of all of them.


EASTER!
Sunday was fun to spend with the family - We got up and went to the catholic easter sunday church service (I almost passed out from the 'ceremonial incense' - ok, not that serious, but it was pretty bad), went over to one of the aunts to look for our easter egg baskets (I was the only one over 15 that got a basket :D ), and had a really awesome lunch on the 'Cold Lake' or Kälteresee'.

Little cousin Katharina found her easter basket. . . .

. . . and with help, I found mine!

Hanging around (Verena, Tobi, Birgit, me, Johanna).

Katharina thought the whole sit-around-and-talk-forever thing pretty boring, so decided to dip her feet in the water.

Waiting for the food.

The 'younger cousins' on a paddle boat ride.

Olive trees as we drive up about halfway on one of the mountains.

Visiting 'Aldenburg'.

Looking at another Burg down into the valley where Neumarkt is.

The 'Kälteresee'.

Ulli, my host mom and I.

Tobi, my pretty crazy host brother and I looking over the valley.

From left: Florian (oldest host brother), me, Birgit (cousin), Tobi (younger host brother), Johanna (youngest host sister), Verena (oldest host sister), and an unhappy cousin Phillip. He thought this whole sight seeing thing was pretty dumb. We also went up and visited another church (St. Peter) in the city of Termine, where I am told extremely famous and yummy wine comes from. Phillip and Tobi took control then and one car went home, while I looked at the church with Ulli.

Monday morning we had a nice breakfast of 'weißwurst' ( a typical Bayerisch food, a white bratwurst) for breakfast/brunch and Verena, Birgit and I went for a hike around the area. Pizza that night was really yummy as well.

Oma Anna, another Grandma, and cousin Max at brunch.

Little Katharina looking very cute and very photogenic.

Aunt Edelgard's house.

Me, Verena and Johanna.

We were all sitting there calmly eating, and suddenly one of the uncles pulls out this huge whip. Apparently, it was one of the common past times of Süd Tirol farmers and men in general, and continues to bring a smile to peoples faces. He stood on the garden wall and made snapping noises from the monstrous whip that rang through the entire valley. It was actually quite extreme.

Hiking above Neumarkt.

Climbing around an old Roman ruin.

While we were there, the apple trees were blooming just amazingly. Hiking above the valley, the entire thing looked covered in a light dusting of frost because the flowers were all so white. It also makes it smell incredibly good, and although a few most certainly show up, there are hardly any bees around.

Birgit and Verena in one of the apple tree fields.


On Tuesday Ulli and I took the chance to look at the city of Bozen (Bolzano), the capital of the Südtirol province.

Most of Italy has an eagle as a represantory animal, but Südtirol proudly portrays their lions. The other province that has a lion is Venice, where you can probably see/have seen multiple winged lions hiding in the architecture.

The 'Dom' (Maria Himmelfahrt Church) in Bozen, a symbol of Bozen that is a great representation of both Romantic and Gothic periods.

Looking out at 'Sandtal', the Valley where the famous Andreas Hofer was born.

Old architecture.

Italy!

At the market in Bozen buying strawberries - all you need to know is 'Prego' and 'Grazi', Please and Thank you - although more is always helpful.

Along the 'Fußgangezone', or shopping street, in Bozen.



Overall I found Italy extremely entertaining, and getting a taste of it's real culture and people just helps you to understand the country a lot better. I learned about how the Mafia really does control everything, including the leader Bellesconi which the cousins don't appear to like very much at all (funny quote: I like that Obama guy [...], he's nicely browned from the sun). I learned the Italy is just one of those places you hate because they are almost always blessed with good weather (I think it's always good weather, because you can't have straight sunny days for weeks - you need a little change, but I suppose I am Minnesotan. The year just wasn't quite right if a nice storm hasn't passed through yet). I find the continuing generosity from all of my host families just incredible - my year would be half of what it is now if not for my amazing experiences with each of them. Italy was, of course, no excpetion and I'm just so happy I got to visit the country. The question is now, when I'll be back?