Windmills, Chocolate and dessert

Today we met Robert and his wife Tania to go to Zaanse Schans outside of Amsterdam.  Robert and Tania picked us up at 9:45 and we made the 45 minute ride to Zaanse Schans.  Zaanse Schans has several museums that show the process used by the people of Holland to make everything from wooden shoes to peanut oil.  Our first stop was at the wooden shoe museum where they showed us the old way of making wooden shoes which took about 2 hours to finish a pair (yes this was just an explanation).  Then they showed us how using a series of machines that work much like a key cutting machine, cuts the work of making a pair of wooden to shoes to less than 10 minutes.  The wooden shoes are decorated for all different reasons from working in the garden and wet soil to a wedding or special

event.  It is amazing the way some of these are decorated.  Years ago, the wooden shoes were even outfitted with blades or wheels for skating.  The clogs even were made with spikes to assist in walking across all of the ice in the winter.

After the wooden shoes, we went to one of the windmills.  The windmills are located on the famous Kalverringdijk.  At one time, the Zaan district of this area was the oldest industrial area of the world.  At one time, there were nearly 1,000 windmills in this area.  Each of the windmills have a different purpose.  We stopped to see one that made peanut oil.  When we walked into the windmill, we saw two very large stones rolling along a table in a circle.  At the same time, there were pieces of wood that moved along side to push the crushed peanuts back under the rolling stone.  At another station, the crushed peanuts were being heated up.  The heating released the oils so that it could be pressed out and collected.  The collection process was done by placing the heated, crushed peanut "mush" into cloth bags.  The bags were then placed into a device that used wood and a very large wood "hammer" to compact the mush.  As it was being compacted, the oil was collected on metal pans.  From the metal pans, the oil was poured into large 50 gallon barrels.  Those barrels were then sent to a plant where the oil was cleaned and bottled for selling.  This particular windmill produces 6,000 liters of oil per year.  So as not to waste anything, the remaining "cake" that was left after pounding out the oil (twice as a matter of fact) was sold as cow fodder.

After the oil pressing, we went over to the ferry to go across the dijk.  For 1 Euro, we were each able to go across the water on the ferry, which was really more like a large fishing boat.  Once across, we watched as racing sculls were put into the locks that led from the dijk water to one of the canals.  The area is full of canals that transport everything from kayaks and canoes to barges and sailboats.  In most sets of locks that we see in the states, the water is lowered and raise using pumps.  This makes the time required much lower and more vessels are accommodated.  However here, the locks are managed by hand.  From opening and closing the locked to opening the passage for the water.  So, the process takes quite a bit longer to occur.  Additionally, because of this time, it is much more likely that a small vessel like a scull will tip over waiting.  This happened today right before we got to the locks.  We saw the poor rowers pulling their vessel out of the water (and trying to dump out the water) downstream about 50 yards.

As we walked around the rest of the area, we bought cheese and revelled at the scenery and its beauty.  The last museum we went into held and exhibit on the Verkade company.  Verkade was started as a bakery in the late 1800's.  After 100 years, it included chocolate and candles.  In the exhibit, we were able to read about the start of the company and its evolution.  There were also original machines setup that showed how the products were made.  After 5 hours of roaming, taking in the sights and learning a bit of local history, we set out for Robert and Tania's house where we had dinner.

Dinner was a collection of different foods.  We had a dish that was originally from a Dutch colony in South America served with rice, as well as a traditional Dutch pastry casserole that had chicken and vegetables in it.  Along with it were several different sides that you could add including hard boiled eggs, bacon, fried bananas, and dried banana chips.  All of it was very tasty, but I have to say that my favorite was dessert.  Tyko, Robert and Tania's oldest son, bakes for a hobby so he made dessert.  There were several choices: Dutch apple pie, a tart that had a custard and whipped cream filling topped with strawberries, and a cherry dessert that had a chocolate crust with a light creamy frozen second layer topped with a cherry glaze.  It was light but very tasty - definitely my favorite.

Tomorrow we are off to a tour with a local.  We shall see how that goes.....

Countryside of Germany and Day 1 of Amsterdam

Well yesterday was a day full of traveling the German countryside seeing more towns with small,

Fritz and Stefan

cobblestoned streets and sidewalks.  Cousin Fritz and his nephew Stefan took us to the places the he knew about that family members used to call home.  We visited the place where my great-grandfather lived, the place my grandfather and his brothers were born, as well as several other places of previous generations - like aunts, uncles, etc.

Fritz is amazing, he wanted to make sure that we saw plenty of the Schwabian part of Germany which included a museum that was housed in the castle of a past king of the region during the 1700s.  He also showed us a tower that had been reconstructed just feet from where the original had been uncovered about 30 years ago.  The tower was used by people to see the enemy arriving and sat on the territory limits of the "civilized" area of the kingdom.  Using the towers, soldiers were able to see the "barbarians" that may be coming to try to fight for land within the kingdom.


After seeing about 10 small towns, having lunch at a little cafe and going to the museum, we were treated to lunch at Fritz and Kerstin's restaurant Weinkellereinhorn in Esslingen.  They serve traditional Schwabisch German food.  We didn't know before we came here (although I suppose we really should have) that the food is different depending upon the region of Germany that you are in.  Bavaria is probably what most people think of when they thing "German food"  as it is the traditional sausage and sauerkraut.  But I must say that I think I enjoyed Fritz's food much more than I thought I might.  Perhaps it is simply because I was tired of sausage and potatoes.  Anyway after 4 hours, yes four hours, we said our goodbye, thanked our hosts, and Fritz took us back to the hotel in Stuttgart.

We got up this morning and caught our train out of Stuttgart to the Netherlands. We changed trains in Duisburg and finished the ride to Amsterdam.  Total travel time was about 5 hours.  Once we got to Amsterdam the fun really began!  We got off the train at the main train station which sits within a very short distance from the harbor/seaside.  We grabbed a cab since our hotel was about 1.5 miles from the station.  The station was surrounded by people, trams, bicycles, scooters - you name it ti was there.  I have never seen such a mess in all my life.  I thought Chicago was crazy - this puts all of our big cities and those in Germany to shame.  One must watch for people, bikes, scooters and dogs in the street, on the sidewalks, in the bike lanes - everything was everywhere.  By the time we got to the hotel, we were so shell-shocked we didn't quite know what to do.

We got up to our room through the very narrow hallways to find a room that wasn't much larger than most master bedrooms (12x20 maybe) the room's arrangement was strange with the desk in the middle and the TV on top of it facing the bed.  At the end of the room was a daybed.  This will be a very interesting 4 days.  We then met a former colleague of Mom's, Robert, and his family.  They met us here at the hotel and we went to the city center for a drink to chat.  We will be spending the day with them tomorrow going to a couple of museums and then having dinner.  They have two sons, one in college and the other in high school.  The high school student will be a foreign exchange student next year in the states.  How funny would that be if he ended up in our area?  Well more tomorrow if we don't get back too late from Robert's house. Untill then....Ciao.

New Family

We traveled to Stuttgart yesterday to meet my dad's cousin Fritz.  We were all quite nervous as we didn't know what to think or expect.  So we made the hour and a half trip via train and when we pulled into the station and got off the train,  who should be standing there with a sign "WEISS" in his hand but Fritz and our other cousin Stefan.  It was quite a surprise.  So after walking to our hotel (which was right across the street from the train station) Fritz and Stefan took us to Trude's house.  Trude is Fritz's older sister and Stefan's mother.  In a wheelchair, Trude is a bit frail at 82 but you could see the excitement in her eyes that we were there.

We were immediately treated to coffee and homemade cheese cake that Stefan's wife Bettina had made from scratch.  The cheesecake seems to be made differently as the taste is not the same as at home.  The cake is much lighter in consistency and in taste.  As we sat eating the cake, we chatted about our families and other very light topics.  Fritz has told Mom that his English is not very good, but I think it is much better than we had expected.  Stefan's English is better and Bettina's better yet.  Often if Fritz didn't understand something it became Bettina's job to explain it in German.

When we were done eating the cake, Fritz pulled out his computer and showed us the family tree that his son Max had done.  There were people that were missing their dates of death, but he traced at least the Weiss men back to 1769.  Then Fritz pulled out the other things that he had gathered and found, including pictures of people that he knew and others that he did not. We think that my grandfather was in one of the pictures, but we weren't sure.  We tried to identify the unknown people, but it was really hard to determine who they were as we don't have any pictures of the family.

Fritz, Stefan and Bettina took us to dinner at a local restaurant near Stefan's house.  We began dinner at 6 or so and weren't done until nearly 8:30.  Fritz's wife Kirsten joined us for dinner and she then became the interpreter.  Her English is VERY good and she wanted more practice.  Kirsten is a teacher at a Montessori school and finds that English is very helpful as it tends to be the only language that everyone speaks.  Because the restaurant was local, the menu was only in German so Kirsten had to translate it for us.  As dinner progressed, Kristen became the translator instead of Bettina.

Today we will be going to see the areas that our family has lived, including where Grandfather grew up.  Maybe we will see some gravesites of other relatives.  Then tonight we are going to eat in Fritz's restaurant.

Our final day on tour

Well today is the last day on our Germany escorted tour.  Tomorrow we leave for Stuttgart to meet Dad's cousin Fritz, his wife Kirsten and perhaps their children.  Fritz owns and runs a pub/restaurant outside of Stuttgart, so we will get to eat some more sausage.  Well maybe not, as Stuttgart is not in Bavaria where you find the most sausage.  Yesterday I just wanted a pizza - something that I was used to eating.  When I get home I will be looking forward to eating a hamburger, steak, a salad that isn't sour - all of the things that I apparently take for granted.

So we left the hotel this morning and began driving into the Black Forest.  We stopped at a nice little shop that greeted us outside with cherry liqueur - no doubt to get us ready to spend money.  They had a

This is what my cuckoo clock will look like

HUGE cuckoo clock with music outside.  The figurines were life-sized.  It was very cool.  Inside, the shop owner was carving wood using his carving tools.  I missed getting a picture as I didn't want to offend him.  They had so many cuckoo clocks, it was unbelievable.  I was glad that I waited until we got there to purchase mine.  It will take 3-4 weeks to get to me because they have to make it yet, but I am so excited.  I took a picture of what it will look like so I could show everyone.

Then we went to Heidelberg.  There is a castle there with a wine vat that holds 50,000 gallons of wine.  Yep, you read correctly and I did not mistype it - 50,000 gallons.  I would hate to taste it.  Can you imagine?

Well tonight we are staying in Frankfurt and we had our last dinner together as a group.  We met a ton of nice new people from all over the states and Canada.  I haven't seen my dad laugh so much in such a short period of time.  I hope that they all have safe travels home.

I will continue to write while we are in Stuttgart and Amsterdam for the next week, so keep checking back.

On to the Land of Black Forest Cake and Cuckoo Clocks

Today we left Oberammergau and went to see King Lodwig II’s palace.  Only a 20 minute drive, we made good time and enough time to ensure that we were on the first tour.  Apparently this tour is not nearly as popular as the one of the castle Neuschweinstein that we saw yesterday. I must say however that I liked this tour much better than yesterday’s.  There were more rooms completed and more history behind them.  The grounds were finished and the statues, waterfalls and other pieces were quite

impressive.  I am still amazed by the expense of all of the things in the palace.  For example, all of the gold work was 22 or 24 karat flaked.  Additionally, the wood floors had inlays for the details and the grain of the inlay matched that of the grain of the wood around it.  There was a chandelier that weighed 500 pounds! 

We also saw the cave that King Lodwig had made so that he had a place to go and relax away from everyone.  In the cave, he had his own pond and he had that pod heated to about 92 degrees Fahrenheit so that it would keep the “room” warm while he was in it.  He also had the first lighting of its tie including the ability to change the colors of the lights to influence the color of the room.  The man was completely eccentric and some say crazy.

We then traveled to Lindau to spend lunch along Lake Constance.  Lake Constance is so big that it gives the aura of the seaside.  In the background, you could see the Alps.  It was quite a sight.  

We then traveled to the Black Forest where we spent the night.  The hotel we are at has a nearly life-sized glockenspiel that rings and plays its music on the hour.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures because they turn it off between 8:30 pm and 8:30 am.  We go to Heidelberg to see the woodcarving tomorrow.  Maybe I will find a cuckoo clock I like.  

Day 9 - Frescos, castles, and the German Alps

Today we stayed in Oberammergau for the day.  Known for its Christmas shops, Oberammergau also presents the Passion Play every 10 years.  This sleepy town of about 5,000 people draws tens of thousands every year (even more when the passion play is happening) to their shops in the foothills of the German Alps.

This morning we drove to Schwangau, which is almost in Austria, to see Kind Lodwig II's castle Neuschwanstein.  This castle was Disney's inspiration for the castle in Cinderella and at his theme parks.  It's white castle walls are in deep contrast to the dark forested mountains that surround it on three sides.  The fourth side overlooks a valley that seems and endless sea of green with a few small towns, barns, and red-roofed houses.  In addition to all of that, there are two lakes to finish the landscape leaving no one to wonder why he chose this particular spot for his enormous castle.

Started in 1869, the castle was not completed before the king's death in 1886 and sits today just as it was left.  Over that period, the kitchen and the third floor were completed - more or less.  The king slept a total of 11 days in the castle before his death in 1886 - under still suspicious circumstances.

We had dinner in a town about the size of Batavia, but our restaurant was in an area of town that would appear at first glance to be much older.  Nearly all of the buildings had frescos painted on them - including homes.  It is amazing that many of these frescos last decades.  This is because they are created and painted at the same

time that the houses have plaster put on them.  The paint is not put on the plaster, but put into the plaster.  So instead of painting on the plaster like a canvas, they are plastered as paintings.  It's an amazing sight to be honest and this comes from someone who by her own admission has no real desire to see artwork.  Tomorrow off to see King Lodwig I's Linderhoff Castle and start travelling toward the infamous Black Forest.

Day 8 - Munich's Birthday

Well today was pretty low keyed.  In Germany the government does not allow businesses to be open for shopping.  There are a few exceptions like gas stations, bus and train stations and of course the airports.  Otherwise shopping does not exist on Sundays, so today we spent most of our day in Munich.  We took a tour this morning of the city as well as the area where King Ludwig built his wife’s summer home.  It began as one 5-story house with a building on each side of it.  After he added on and his son and grandson added on their parts during their reigns, it became a 600 acre park with a reflection pool (much like the one that sits in front of the Washington Monument) and 16 buildings that included the world’s largest indoor carriage house and a church. 

During the tour we also found out that this weekend was the celebration weekend for Munich’s anniversary.  Anniversary number 586 I think is the correct number of years.  This anniversary celebration was all that one would expect to see in Germany.  We watched the glockenspiel that is in the city hall play its tunes and the figurines rotate telling the story of Munich.  Then there were Bavarian bands playing their Oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa music along with people dancing traditional Bavarian dances.  Of course all of this was done by people wearing lederhosen and those Bavarian dresses (the name escapes me at the moment).  We spent several hours listening to music and walking the streets of Munich looking at all of the handcrafted items from paintings to yard art made from metal or glass and handbags to wood carvings.  The talent is amazing!  Best part of the day was seeing men dressed as women walking through the crowd on stilts – it was crazy.  The day was a little too slow to write too much so I will just post a bunch of pictures.  Of course I will have video of the glockenspiel when I come home.

Our Hotel in Oberammergau