Tag Archives: travel

October 2, 2019 · 22:54

Back in the USA

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are back in the USA after our two week pilgrimage to Germany. It was good for us, especially for me when I intentionally disconnected from media for several of the days there except to skim the headlines. Today was much like that. We drove from Karlsruhe to Munich, caught our late flight back which was delayed due to weather in Munich and having to go further north to avoid the effects of Hurricane Lorenzo. We got into Washington about 40 minutes late. Our friend David picked us up at the airport and we are resting.

We will head back home to our Papillons tomorrow and begin the process of readjusting to insanity of Trump’s America, preparing to transfer my duties to a new Chaplain as I really enter the preparation to retire from the military and prepare for life as a civilian in the spring.

I will write some of my observations of Germany, Europe and our trip in the coming days. There are problems there too, different but similar in some ways to what we are going through. And I think as I ruminate on them over the next few days I will jot them down here. As I have said before, I believe that we are in one of those epochs of history where the old order is giving way and we go from crisis to crisis, some of which could be disastrous for humanity in general, but especially those who resist totalitarian systems of government. I was looking at my Twitter feed for about 10 minutes before I had to get off it it.

I have now been up over 28 hours, driven about 200 miles and had a ten hour ride in a Lufthansa Airbus 350-900. Before I go to bed I will read my daily comics and another chapter or two of the book That Was Dachau, 1933-1945. 

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2019 · 17:52

A Last Night in Germany: Thoughts on Returning Home

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Tonight is our last night in Germany with our friends and it was rather restful. We took the S-Bahn train to Karlsruhe for a bit of shopping for Judy and stopped in an Italian coffee and ice cream shop for lunch. Judy has now developed a taste for Cappuccino, which I like as well. Much of the time we had no internet or LTE connection which wasn’t a bad thing because we spent time with each other.

A word of warning for others who visit areas of Germany that are not in major cities, LTE and 5G Service can be sporadic at best. This can be extremely frustrating at times. Thankfully our friends near Karlsruhe have a WiFi connection in our name connected to their internet service.

After our visit to Karlsruhe we went back to our friends house and while Judy rested, I went for a ten kilometer walk punctuated by a visit to a local pilstube, or bar where I had a couple of beers and spoke to the bartender and regulars. Of course I was the on foreigner there, which is par for the course in many small towns. Until I identified myself as an American, without speaking English, and explained that my wife’s family was from the area, I was able to pass myself off as a German.

Tonight we will have dinner with out friends, and I will do as much packing as I can before going to bed. It has been nice being with our friends; they have three of the same kind of dogs that we have and all are sweet. It is nice to have a sweet dog on your lap when you are away from home.

We will drive to Munich in the morning, drop off our rental car and then check in for our flight. Depending on the time I might get another post off before the flight or when we get back to the United States.

Before bed I have been reading a book that I purchased at Dachau, entitled That Was Dachau 1933-1945 by the Czech historian and former Dachau inmate, Stanislav Zamecnik, published by the International Committee Of Dachau. I am getting close to the halfway point in it but it is well worth the read if you can can get a copy. I will be writing more about Dachau in the future going into far more detail about the policies, laws, and atrocities committed than I am mentioning now. However, it is now late, and after a wonderful time with our friends it is time to go to bed.

Until sometime tomorrow, Central European or Eastern Standard Time I wish you all the best.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 28, 2019 · 17:51

A Day in Hessen: Friends, Fulda, and Train Rides

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We spent most of the day going back and forth on a regional train from our friends house to the City of Fulda where we visited the magnificent Cathedral, spent time with each other and pretty much stayed disconnected from the world, except for me checking the German Bundesliga soccer scores.

I will write more about some of the history Of the places we have been another time.

We left the house after breakfast and got to Fulda about 12:30. we walked through the town, had lunch, continued to walk and to see the old baroque inner city. I had not been there since 1996 and Judy had never been there. It was a wonderful time with our friends. We left about 5:30 and as the sun set over the beautiful countryside I saw a rainbow from my train window and was able to get a picture of it. We got home about 8:00 and had a light dinner with some wine and spent time with our friends talking about the events of the day and watching the news, while I also caught up on my daily comic strips and skimming the news from home. 

Tomorrow we will have breakfast, pack and begin our journey to see our friends in Karlsruhe, while stopping in places where Judy’s mothers family emigrated from first to Russia then to the United States. They are one the way to our friends house.

It will be another day of mostly being disconnected from from the problems of the world, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve

 

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September 20, 2019 · 18:24

Munich: Day One After a Long Two Days

 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

it has been a very long day since we got up Thursday morning. We have been up about 30 something hours with a bit of fitful sleep on our flight over the Atlantic to Munich Germany and Oktoberfest. Despite the length of our day and the amount we have traveled it has been a good day and more.

Our puppies are safely ensconced with our friend Emery in our house. Izzy and Pierre have been their usual over the top best friends, while Minnie, though friendly has gone back into here autistic shell. Not to worry, she warms up to people and will be fine, even if it comes down to basically jealousy. Judy misses Minnie and I miss the younger two as we go to sleep tonight.

We arrived a bit late on our Lufthansa flight because of the winds created by the now dissipated Hurricane Humberto. However, from that point everything went great. Judy had her last physical therapy after her knee replacement surgery on Monday, and instead of bringing her old German made forearm crutches from home we stopped at the store where I got the original pair and got a new pair for far less then we could purchase in the U.S.

Following that we went to the hotel, put our stuff away and took an early dinner at our favorite local restaurant, Zum Brunstein on Munich’s Orleans Straße, where over the years the staff have become like family. After that we went for an early nightcap at the hotel bar where we met two wonderful bartenders, one from Nigeria, the other from Turkey, and a German front desk clerk. At each place Judy gave away her hand made earrings and bracelets to the servers and  bartenders . We find that wherever we go it is better to be a giving visitor, than ugly Americans. The fact that my fluency in German helps, Judy, though more limited in German due to her hearing loss l makes friends because of how sincere and friendly she is. So today was a day of connecting with old friends and making new friends, even meeting a man from Norfolk at the hotel bar who naturally became part of our circle of friends. Hopefully, he will go with us to the opening parade and tapping at the Oktoberfest.

Before I went to sleep on the flight last night I watched the film Groundhog Day dubbed into German with no subtitles. I find that doing things like that helps my understanding of the language and increases my vocabulary. But I digress.

We will get up early tomorrow to get ready to go to the parade, and the tapping. Eat lunch which will probably be the half a rotisserie grilled chicken and potato salad topped with a couple liters of beer. After than we will probably do some shopping. I imagine that Sunday will be the day I go to Dachau and its sub-Camp , in a northern suburb or Munich.

So with the Z Monsters after me I will sign off until tomorrow. 

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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September 19, 2019 · 21:44

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime: Thoughts on Another Trip to Germany

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

within the next hour or so we will be in the air for our pilgrimage to Munich and other parts of Germany.

Mark Twain once wrote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Sadly, a majority of Americans never leave the county and many have never travelled more than a hundred miles of their birthplace. Maybe that is why we have become such a bigoted and unwelcoming country. Mark Twain was absolutely correct in his observation. Maybe I am different, but my mom, brother, and wife can testify that I was born with the gift of wanderlust, a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world. 

I have never liked vegetating in one place. I am a born explorer, and I like to get off the beaten track. I do that a lot. St. Augustine Of Hippo wrote: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” I love reading and I love traveling. I also love writing and taking pictures.

We are in traveling in Germany for the Oktoberfest, as well as to see friends, and for me, another chance, to visit historic sites. I have to admit that I do love traveling. If I had unlimited time and money or was paid to travel I could easily imagine spending at least six month of every year away from home, preferably with Judy and our Papillons, all who travel well.

For me travel is an adventure and it always has been. When I was a child and my father was in the Navy I was crushed when he retired because there would be no more moving to new places. Even as a child I was infected with a wanderlust that I have never tried to treat. Even when I go to a familiar place I try to find new places to go, especially to when history was made. This week was no exception, and yes there will be more before this trip is over.

Judy and I also like meeting people who come from different places than us. At Oktoberfest this is easy because in addition to the Germans, there are people from around the world. For us those are some of the most interesting and pleasant experiences because we didn’t even try to script them, and in some cases, both at the Fest and a local restaurant near our hotel, there are people who now know us and give us friendly greetings. Of course it does help that we speak German, but even without that simple acts of kindness, friendliness, respect, and thankfulness go a long way to make the experience great.

I think that traveling as much as we have has been very influential in how we see and relate to the world and why we just shake our heads when we see people who have never been out of the bubble of home declare themselves experts about people they have never met and places they have seen. The prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness of some people bolstered by their ignorance saddens me because I know that a simple change of perspective is often all that is needed to open people’s eyes and minds to a bigger and better world. Of course travel is not a magic wand, there are some people whose prejudices, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness is only reinforced by traveling.

But Judy and I are not tourists. We want to experience where we are. Tourism focuses on seeing sites or doing certain activities will traveling, and that is okay to an extent, but it is more important and richer to discover what makes a people and a place what it is, to experience hospitality, and to extend a hand of friendship. Henry Miller wrote, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

When you travel, especially to a foreign county it is somewhat humbling, not that there is anything wrong with that. You discover that things that were simple at home are either more difficult or different, and it doesn’t hurt to learn both how and why the locals do things. Learning those things has helped us back at home, because we talk much of what we learn with us because we found that it works. We love the mass transportation system, we like the smaller stores, and I like being able to do a lot of walking because the cities and towns are designed for it, unlike much of the United States.

There is a saying here in Bavaria, or as it is called here, Bayern, that “Im Bayern geht die uhren anders,” or in Bavaria the time goes differently. This is because even their fellow Germans often find the ways of Bavarians perplexing.

But anyway, that is all for today, it’s 9:30 in the evening here and we will be landing at 12:30 PM Central European time, or 6:30 Eastern Standard Time.

Have a nice night,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 8, 2018 · 23:46

Back in the USA

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

After 18 days of traveling in Germany and the Alsace Region of Eastern France we returned to the United States today.

We have a very good time visiting friends, seeing many historical sites, and getting a chance to clear our heads and refresh ourselves as we go into what promises to be a very busy and stressful time as I go back to work while preparing to retire from the Navy next year. For me that will include managing a religious program while losing most of my enlisted support staff without replacements. That will make things difficult and hard choices may have to be made in terms of what we can support. In such a situation I have to keep my head in the game in order not to let people who depend on my leadership down.

I will also be doing all of the things that have to be done in order to retire, the biggest of which are the medical requirements, making sure that everything is ready for my assessment regarding my VA disability rating which should be pretty high, my GI Bill education benefits, and the beginning of a job search that enables me to make up any difference between what I make on active duty and my retirement/disability income.

In addition within the next couple of months Judy should be having the first of two knee replacement surgeries even as we try to finish up the work we have been doing in our house which we will have to squeeze into whatever time we have.

Over the next week or so I am going to publish articles about our trip and that I haven’t had time to do just yet, some are even in draft form already.

By the way, I have to shave the beard off Wednesday morning before I go to work, but this will be my post retirement look and I will have more time than 18 days to grow it out. Fear the beard.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2018 · 17:38

On the East Side: Berlin, 32 Years Later

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The last time we were in Berlin was in November 1986. At the time it was a divided city. When we last we here we had to have special permission and special paperwork to go to the city. Back then we drove the autobahn from Helmstedt to Berlin. At the inter-German border we had to first get our paperwork checked and stamped at the NATO border crossing center, Checkpoint Alpha.

We then drove a few hundred yards to the Soviet checkpoint where Soviet troops checked our paperwork. That part was interesting because the Soviets frequently rejected NATO troops for minor mistakes in the paperwork and would make them spend extra time waiting outside the guard shack. Fortunately for us the wait was minimal and with the necessary military courtesies exchanged, we were on our way.

It was 110 miles from Helmstedt to the Allied Military Checkpoint. On reaching Berlin we had to repeat the drill with the Soviets that we did at Helmstedt and the check in at the NATO checkpoint, Checkpoint Bravo which we passed again on Sunday when driving into Berlin.

Once in Berlin we found our hotel on the West side and the next day drove to Checkpoint Charlie before going into East Berlin. We made a second trip into the city on Sunday morning. East Berlin was the pearl of the Warsaw Pact but compared to West Berlin it was dingy, impoverished, and still showed the deep scars of the Second World War where pulverized buildings, still not repaired or restored covered blocks away from the Unter den Linden and Alexanderplatz. As Americans we were shadowed by Stasi agents everywhere we went. The beer was bad, and like anyone else we waited in long lines to purchase what little we could in the stores we shopped.

Conversely, West Berlin was an island of opportunity and opulence though surrounded by the DDR and its Soviet allies.

The closest we could come back then to the Brandenburger Tor was about 200 Meters as it sat in the middle of the Zone of Death, an appropriate term based on the number of East Germans who were killed or wounded trying to escape to the West.

The contrast today is amazing. The hotel we are staying in was then in the East. Almost everywhere we have been in the past two days once was in East Berlin and the change is remarkable. Much of the Unter den Linden is recognizable simply because the buildings were part of the government and diplomatic center of the city, monuments still stand where they were 32 years ago, but now it is hard to find what was the wall around the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag. We walked under the Brandenburger Tor and past the Reichstag where the Wall once stood. Not far away the Mall of Berlin practically sits in the former Zone of Death and was built where Berlin’s largest pre-World War Two Department Store, Wertheim once stood. It is now the heart of a reborn central shopping district which had been ravaged by Nazi rule, war, and Soviet rule. It really is hard to believe the difference now.

Now there are still signs of the War. We have seen a number of buildings, especially brick or stone structures that still have the pick marks and holes caused by bullets, or shell fragments. Some of these buildings are across from our hotel at Humbolt University’s old medical school and clinic complex. The Rumanian Embassy has similar damage.

Anyway, we remain on the former East Side tonight and should visit some more museums tomorrow including the DDR Museum and possibly the Berlin Wall Museum near Checkpoint Charle. We will be meeting our friend, Dr. Bishop Rink, the head of the German Military Lutheran or Evangelische Chaplain Service who we hosted in Virginia Beach during the summer tomorrow afternoon.

So anyway, until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 29, 2018 · 19:12

Meeting Old Friends in Eisenach

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It has been a long day so tonight’s post is basically to check in. We left Wittenberg this morning after a nice visit to meet our friends Gottfried and Hannelore in the town of Eisenach for Judy’s birthday which is tomorrow.

On the way we stopped at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp outside of Weimar. It was another sobering visit to a site where man’s inhumanity to man remains fully on display. I will write more about that later and may combine what I write with my observations at Flossenbürg which I visited Thursday.

We arrived at the hotel shortly before they did about 3:45 and we spent the afternoon and evening conversing and reminiscing over dinner and drinks. Our friendship with them is special, we have known them since early 1985 when I was a young Army First Lieutenant stationed in Wiesbaden Germany. We got to know each other through the partnership program between the 68th Medical Group and Sanitäts Regiment 74. Gottfried, who had worked himself up through the enlisted ranks to become an officer was also a First Lieutenant and the Officer in Charge of a Medical Clinic in Mainz.

Over the years we have managed to stay in touch. We have seen their children grow up and have kids of their own. We know Hannelore’s brother and many of their friends. They are like family to us. Tomorrow we will have breakfast with them and then go over to see the Wartburg Castle where Martin Luther was hidden by his supporters after his defense at the Diet of Worms, an where he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. After that we will each head our separate ways, they to their home where they are dealing with repairs to their own home as well as the disposition of the home and business Hannelore’s aunt who died in April. We will drive to Berlin where we will remain until Tuesday.

We will get some pictures posted of the visit sometime soon as I keep getting backlogged on the articles that I plan on writing due to the travel schedule of the past few days. So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 27, 2018 · 16:14

Christmas Angel Mecca: The Blank Kunsthandwerk Shop in the Erzgebirge

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are overnighting in the City of Chemnitz in the Erzgebirge Region of the southeast German State of Saxony. We are here because I had to make sure that Judy got to the workshop and store of the Blank Kunsthandwerk in Grünhainichen which is about fifteen miles from here. Tomorrow we will travel to Lutherstadt Wittenberg to our northwest. On the way there we will stop by the town of Torgau where on April 25th 1945, United States Army and Soviet Red Army troops met to cut Hitler’s Third Reich in two.

The Blank Workshop is a family run business that dates back to the aftermath of the Second World War. The founders, George Beyers and Kurt Lehnert founded it in 1955 but lost it when it nationalized in the early 1972 and the dozen or so employees made their iconic short skirt wooden Christmas Angels for export outside the DDR. Beyers, whose technical expertise led to the creation of the angels and many other wooden craft items was employed only to glue felt to the bases the creations he had invented. It was not until the reunification of the country that the company return to private ownership.

We discovered these hand crafted and delicate wooden angels in late 1984 while visiting Koblenz not long after Judy and I moved to Wiesbaden. Since we didn’t have the cash with us we were send the set of about 25 angels and a tiered stand for 300 Deutsch Marks, which were worth about $100 back then. Since then her collection has grown to over 100 standing figures and 100 hanging figures, the latter that adorn our Christmas tree. Of course the prices have gone up, gone are the days of virtual slave labor which is a good thing. When we first started collecting them they cost us about 5 to 7 Marks each. After the Wall fell and we began to collect them again they cost about 15-20 Marks each, while today, depending on the complexity a piece will cost any from € 20 to € 30, but Judy is always looking for deals on eBay and quite often scores. She also knows how to tell an original from a fake, which helps.

We got into town this afternoon and Judy was able to get a bunch of pieces that she didn’t have as well as 20 pair of replacement wings; as I said these are delicate. We were also able to talk with the girl at the shop about other items the Blank is coming out with and that other local craftsmen produce.

I was glad the Judy finally got to see this place. The fascinating thing is back in the 1980s we never could have visited the Erzgebirge Region or the Blank Shop. We were able to go to Berlin with special authorization and that was unforgettable, we will be in Berlin for the first time since November 1986 on Sunday.

The area is beautiful, in places it reminds me a bit of sections of the Shenandoah Valley, albeit with castles and ancient towns.

On the we here we stopped at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp which I will write about another time.

So anyway, until the next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 26, 2018 · 18:49

Flugzeug, Fußball, and International Friendship in Trump’s Amerika First World

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Sorry for the delay in posting, but the past couple of days have been quite full. Yesterday we had to exchange our rental car and afterwards went to the Deutsches Museum’s aircraft yard Flugwerft in Schleissheim just outside of Munich. After that we went to our favorite local restaurant, Zum Brunnstein, had a long and relaxing lunch and then did some shopping in the local area near our hotel, which despite being a very expensive 4 1/2 star hotel, is located in your typical working class neighborhood. This is because of its location near the city’s Ostbahnhof which makes it a travel hub for business people and tourists.

After that we went back to the hotel where I prepared for my epic trip to a Bayern München game at Allianz Arena. But before I do that I have to go back in time…

Back in 1979 I was traveling with an American Christian singing group in Europe when President Jimmy Carter gave his American Malaise speech. Back then I was young, and still idealistic about the hope and promise of the United States that was given life in the proposition of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” as well as the ability of Americans to rise to the occasion in the midst of a real economic crisis triggered by massive inflation that had begun during the Nixon administration and the massive rise in oil prices after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

There was also a crisis of confidence in the ability of the nation to do better in the future, a crisis of confidence in the American system of government, and deep divisions over the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights movement which had expanded to women and homosexuals. Carter, whose deep Christian faith was always in evidence was castigated by prominent political activist preachers in the nascent Christian Right.

His speech was actually masterful, but he chose to use a harsh term to describe the truth about the United States in 1979, he talked of an American Malaise. That word was enough to cause his otherwise masterful diagnosis of the health of the nation to be mocked on both sides of the Atlantic. I will write about that speech soon because it is

At the time his words were mocked in many parts of Europe and as a nineteen year old college student traveling abroad I was embarrassed to be an American as I read in British newspapers the reaction to his speech. Of course I hadn’t actually heard or read the speech, only the reaction in the British tabloids which used it to slam the American President who they considered to be a non-Presidential commoner. Likewise, at the time I didn’t understand the nature of the Tabloids, or even the flagship British newspapers, and assumed that what I read was accurate. Based on those articles in the British tabloids, I wanted to hide the fact that I was an American, but if I had actually read or heard the speech I would have admired his honesty and candor.

Yesterday was different yet similar, however, instead of simply reading the reaction to the President’s speech at the United Nations, I was able to watch it and read its text, almost in real time. I watched in horror as Trump claimed to have done more than any American President during his first year and a half in office than any previous American President, only to be met with derisive laughter. One has to hand it to the miracles of modern technology sometimes, even when it exposes the American President, using his own speech as a complete idiot and buffoon.

So yesterday, instead of being a young and idealistic college student with little access to news in real time, I am almost forty years older and while still idealistic, I am much more world wise, with a lot more access to news as it happens than I was back then. Frankly, in 1979 I really didn’t know shit from Shinola about anything, even though I thought that I knew it all. Almost forty years later words of the late Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts” have become more than a nice quote. They are truth.

Thirty-nine years after President Carter’s Malaise speech I was again in Europe when the American President again, not only embarrassed the country, but did so on full display while speaking at the United Nations. As I read his words at Munich’s Hofbrauhaus before going up to the Bayern Munich match against Augsburg I wanted to hide, but I was at a table with a couple of Germans, a Pole, and a Dane, all Bayern fans. It is interesting how the a team like Bayern can bring together so many people from around the world.

I could have easily hid the fact that I am American, in fact my German is good enough and my accent a blend of Bayerische, Hessische, and Rheinländische Deutsch to pass myself off as a German. But I am an American and like it or not, for now, Trump is the American President and he has no shame. One of the men that I was sitting with asked where I was from, assuming that I was German. I surprised him by telling him that I was an American and as happens often here I was told by the man just how he loved the United States and Americans but how fearful he was of President Trump. Like other German friends he told me that I should flee to Germany to escape what is coming. The specter of the unthinkable still haunts many Germans, even as the struggle with their own nativist, nationalist, racist, and anti-democratic elements.

Sadly, neither the President nor his Cult followers have any capacity for ethical or moral reflection. While I was embarrassed at President Carter’s speech in 1979, I never wanted to hide my head in shame as as much as I did yesterday when I read and watched President Trump’s speech to the United Nations. I was ashamed, because unlike Carter’s speech which had much basis in the reality of the times, and maybe more so today, Trump’s message of an America First foreign policy upends the promise of of the Atlantic Charter and everything good that came after it. He praises dictators and compliments regimes that have more in common with Stalin, Mao, or Hitler than Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Roosevelt and routinely savages our actual friends and allies.

But anyway, it is now after midnight here and we will be getting up to travel north, first to the Erzgebirge Region of Saxony before going to Wittenberg where Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation, then to Eisenach to meet our friends Gottfried and Hannelore before traveling to Berlin on Sunday.

So until the next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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