Tag Archives: travel

September 16, 2018 · 23:08

Preparing for Another Trip to Germany

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Later this week we will be flying to Germany for what has seemingly become an annual pilgrimage. While there we will be seeing friends as well as enjoying the Oktoberfest in Munich, seeing historical places, and exploring towns where Judy’s ancestors came from in the Rheinland-Pfalz, Baden-Württemberg, and the Alsace in France.

While in Munich I plan to again visit Dachau and the Sophie Scholl museum at Munich University and hopefully a number of other sites. I have a ticket for a soccer match between Bayern-München and Augsburg at Allianz area.

Outside of Munich it looks like we will visit the Flossenbürg and Buchenwald Concentration Camps Southwest of Berlin. We will stay in Wittenberg where Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation, and the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach where Luther was hidden after his defense and excommunication before the Imperial Diet at Worms. In his ten months of hiding he translated the New Testament from Greek into German.

We will visit friends in Berlin. It will be our first visit to the city since November of 1986, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It will be interesting to see the redone Reichstag, walk under the Brandenburger Tor, as well as see the the Berlin Monument to the Holocaust, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the Bendlerstrasse Museum to the German anti-Nazi resistance, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, and the Wannsee House.

From Berlin we will stay with friends near Karlsruhe one the Rhein River near the French Border for a few days before returning to Munich for our flight home.

I’ll be writing and posting about those things and more in the coming weeks, but for now I will wish you a good night.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2017 · 14:23

I Miss…

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We’ve been back from Germany for two days now and I have to say that while I am glad to be home that I miss being in a relatively sane country.

* I miss being in a country than can own up to its past and the criminal behavior of past leaders and which does not build memorials to them.

* I miss being in a country where people wrestle with their history and have through bitter experience realized that mythologizing history is dangerous and leads to great evil.

* I miss being in a country where religious fundamentalists don’t control the education system.

* I miss being in a country where civility is the norm and not the exception.

* I miss being in a country that is proactive about the environment.

* I miss being in a country that values the health of its citizens through its healthcare system.

* I miss being in a country where mass transportation is the norm not the the exception.

* I miss being in a country where cities and towns are designed so people can walk or bike safely.

* I miss being in a country where the vast majority of the population is horrified that a right wing political party that espouses racism, Naziism, and isolationism received 13% of the vote.

* I miss being in a country where time with family and friends is valued so much that most stores and businesses close early on Saturday and are closed on Sunday.

* I miss being in a country that is in the forefront of speaking out for human rights.

* I miss being in a country where scholars and intellectuals are not derided.

* I miss being in a country that values science and not just the gadgets and convenience that science produces.

* I miss being in a country where I can sit at a cafe or restaurant in a town square without having to breathe the fumes and deal with the noise of passing cars.

* I miss being in a country where I can watch in depth political debate and analysis on the news that is not nonstop propaganda.

* I miss being in a country where one can live life at a slower pace.

* I miss being in a country where my dogs are welcome in almost as many places as I am, including restaurants.

* I miss being in a country where I can feel safe almost anywhere and where violent crime, especially that committed with guns is not a normal part of everyday life.

I could go on, and for those who might say that I am being rather idealic in my view of Germany I will agree. Germany is not perfect, and it has problems but I do believe that the people and their leaders are much more committed to solving them than we are in the United States. As much as I want to be hopeful and positive in regard to our future of this country, I find it harder to be optimistic with every new day under the leadership of President Trump. There was I time that I thought that the United States could survive anything, but I now realize just how fragile our system is, and how right our founders were to warn about the dangers demagogues and an ignorant populace.

Anyway, until tomorrow, hopefully a better tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 28, 2017 · 22:46

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Returning Home from Germany


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Yesterday was our last full,day in Germany. We spent the morning with our friends Gottfried and Hannelore before we set of for Munich so we could be ready for our flight home in today.
The past two weeks have been some of the best times we have had in a long time. We were able to see people we have gotten to know over the past couple of years in Munich, including or friends Linda and Holgar, and we were able to see old, long time friends like Gottfried and Hannelore who we have known now for about 32 years, as well as Hannelore’s brother Gerhardt, Gottfried’s fellow veteran Franz, and a number of others.

For us that is one of the most special things about traveling here, it is the relationships. We are at home with them and leaving is really kind of hard. Judy and I both love the area where Gottfried and Hannelore live in Hessen. I guess if we ever decided to live outside of the United States that we would find a way to live there. The quality of life is good, housing is comparable in price to where we live now, we know the language, culture, and as for me I love the history and being able just to walk through the forest, across the countryside, and even in the city without having to deal with neighborhoods that are designed more for cars than people. We like the mass transportation, the ability to travel by train, and the freedom not to have to drive everywhere. Likewise, it is more dog friendly, we could take Minnie, Izzy, and Pierre almost anywhere except a grocery store.

So every time we leave it is hard.

When we got to the hotel near Munich’s airport last night we took a short drive to the town of Erding for dinner. It was relaxing to sit in the town square and eat dinner without a lot of tumult and to drive back to the hotel as the sun set.

The last couple of weeks has helped me put some things in perspective. My distance from the seemingly endless political conflicts in the United States has been good. Even though I have kept up with the news I have not been as bombarded with the continuous drone of angry social media posts by people who I disagree with, as well as those with whom I agree. I have found over the past two weeks that it is possible to keep up with events without getting completely sucked in to the morass of hate and division that so characterizes life in the United States today.

I found it interesting to be in Loehnberg where Gottfried and Hannelore live during the German election on Sunday. Though there are political disagreements, I found that the people in the area are still friends regardless of their political affiliation. Most are willing to cross political party lines to vote for people from a different party who they know are good people. I think that part of this is because their political districts conform to city or county lines, and are not subject to the whims of politicians who want to make sure that they have a secure district.

In Germany the districts are smaller, the population is less, and there are more representatives in the German Bundestag than there are in the American Senate and House combined and those who run actually have to live in the districts that they are running for office in. Thus, even in a national election there is a distinctly local feel because voters tend to know a lot about the people they are voting for.

Another thing is that when it comes to campaign advertising there are no 24/7 campaign ads on television or radio. There are posters, speeches, rallies, interviews, and debated, but there is not the deluge of endless propaganda that we in the United States refer to as political advertisements funded by hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign donations that cannot be traced.

As far as politics goes it was one of the most embarrassing times that I have been overseas since 1979 and President Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise” speech. The President’s words and actions on so many issues are impossible to defend when people ask me about them, not that I even try because I agree with them. There was a time that regardless of their party or my differences with them that I would try to defend past presidents from the first time I travelled overseas to Europe in 1979 until last year, simply because I am an American and the President is still the President. However, I cannot do that with President Trump. Yes, he is the President, but his words and actions are so immoral, outrageous, and dangerous that I cannot as a Christian or officer defend them.

The President reminds me of a bit of James K. Polk in temperament, but Polk was a much harder worker, diligent, and well read than Trump, as well as well as disciplined, but I digress…

We got home this evening, had a bite of dinner and then went to pick up Minnie, Izzy, and Pierre and it is good to be back with our Papillon kids. I have Pierre snuggled next to me as I finish this article. Since I have been up since 5:30 AM Munich time it is time for me to crash for the night. I’ll try to continue some of these thoughts tomorrow.

Until then,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

So anyway.

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September 25, 2017 · 19:43

Medieval Towns, Cathedrals, Monasteries, and a Jewish Cemetery: a Day in Hessen


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are enjoying our time with our old friends in Germany and the past two days have been rather relaxing. Today we got some shopping in and I got to take a lot of pictures in the city of Limburg which is about twenty kilometers from where our friends live. I got some nice pictures of some of the old buildings as well as the cathedral which has a different look from most other cathedrals in Europe especially its exterior. While the earliest church dates to around 910 A.D. the current cathedral was completed about 1230 A.D. It is dedicated to St. George. The architecture is mostly Romanesque but the area around the high altar is Gothic. It and the city with its timbered houses are well preserved and have pretty much avoided the ravages of time, it is beautiful and well worth hour or so trip from Frankfurt should you be in the area. We also were invited to the last remaining tower from the old city wall which is on the Lahn River and now maintained by the local German Navy veterans chapter. There is much naval and maritime history maintained in it and our visit there with Gottfried, his wife Hannelore, another old friend, Franz, and a member of the local group who opened it for us was quite nice.


Yesterday, (Sunday) I made a trip with my friend Gottfried to a former Benedictine monastery at Altenburg. Founded in 1178 the church itself was completed in 1268 and dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. It was plundered during the 30 years War and though the monastery burned in 1952, the church survived. The monastery has been renovated since. The church is still active but for the last 200 years has been a part of the Evangelisch (Lutheran) Church. We arrived toward the end of the sermon during the service and I found it interesting to see how much of the liturgy in German, both Catholic and Evangelisch that I remember and easily I can worship in that environment as compared to most American churches.


After we returned from Limburg this afternoon I took a late walk in the town and in the surrounding countryside at dusk and didn’t finish until night had fallen. While I was walking I came upon the Jewish cemetery which is in the forest outside of town. Loehnberg had a small, and sometimes itinerant Jewish population dating back to the early 1600s. In 1927 there were three families in the town, the Sternberg, Halberstadt, and Sieligmann families. I am going to try to find out more about them, but Edith Sieligmann at least survived and was invited back to the town in 1991 for the dedication of a memorial panel in the Rathaus, the current town hall which the Nazis had forced the family to sell at a minimal price. The cemetery is in the forest surrounded by a fence and locked after by the town. Since I saw it as it was getting dark I could not read the grave stones but hope to get a walk or run out that way tomorrow as well as to see the memorial panel in the Rathaus, where I might find more information.


In the morning here we will be going to the Hadamar T4 Euthanasia site where thousands of people, mostly people who were physically handicapped, or mentally disabled in some way, including young children were killed. The T4 sites were the first facilities opened for the purpose of killing in Nazi Germany. Their gas chambers and gas chamber experts became the men who operated the extermination camps, including Auschwitz in Poland.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 23, 2017 · 21:25

Home Away from Home

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Neil Diamond once expressed a thought that I often wrestle with in his song I am I Said, dealing with the subject of what is home. We great day today with our German friends in the town of Loehnberg which is near the cities of Limburg, Braunfels, Weilburg, and Wetzar in the German state of Hessen. This morning we went with our friend Gottfried to see the town and the castle which belonged to the House of Hessen and Nassau, then we went to Braunfels to see the town and castle, and finished in Wetzlar.

All are fascinating towns from a historic and architectural point of view, many of the houses and buildings have the exposed wood beams that one might find in Tudor period houses in England, while the churches all show different aspects of Romanesque or Gothic design; the castles also represent the periods that they were built well. Laneburg, which is here in Loehnberg was built in the 1300s and destroyed during the Thirty Years War. It has been restored and is used for many events but the city has tried to capture what it was while renovating it. Weilburg was one of the principle castles of the House of Hesse-Nassau, along with Schierstiein in Wiesbaden.

The area is mostly an agricultural center with mines for precious stones and mineral springs scattered throughout. The Lahn river winds its way through the area creating a river valley with steep hills on either side flowing to the Rhine where it ends.

It is a beautiful area, Judy and I have been coming here since 1985 and truthfully it feels the most like home away from home than anywhere we have ever been. Part of this is because of our friends Gottfried and Hannelore and their family, through which we have gotten to meet and know a good number of other people in the area. Likewise, having lived in and visited the area many times I understand the dialect of the people here better than any place in Germany with the possibility exception of Bayern.

When Gottfried Judy and I returned home I decided that I needed to walk and I got in about 10.5 kilometers in 90 minutes walking up and down the hills of the town and on the trails that meander through the town, the farmlands, and the forests around it. The weather was beautiful and had we not had a planned dinner engagement at a great brewery restaurant in Braunfels I might have continued until it got dark. It was exhilarating. But I digress…

We had a great time at dinner, the restaurant, Brauhaus Obermuhle was excellent and I had a great Kuferschnitezel, which is a schnitzel a different type of gravy than I have ever had toped with onion rings. Now I am not a fan of onion rings but combined with the pork cutlet, spices, and gravy, it was an amazing taste experience. Likewise, and probably more importantly, I drank one of every beer they brew except the Hefeweizen so I can give a full report to my brewmaster and friends at Gordon Biersch when we return home. The Pils was very good, and I had a blonde bock and a brown bock, followed by a dunkel, and a Saison. The Dunkel wasn’t bad but was a bit sweet for my taste, the Bocks were both excellent as was the Pils and Saison.

Anyway, when we were finished we returned home, talked on a wide range of subjects and eventually turned in for the night. Judy and I a both continuing to expand our German language abilities and except with each other we spoke little English, and even then I would find myself addressing her in German. Honestly I think that immersion in a language and culture is the best way to learn and appreciate foreign lands. As I have said before, I have gotten good enough over the years and because speak with a mixture of the Hessische and Bayriche dialects, most Germans don’t realize for a while that I am an American.

Tomorrow I will get a long walk or run in and we expect to travel to the university town of Marburg which is significant for a number of events that you will get to hear about tomorrow.

So have a great day, or night, or whatever,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 22, 2017 · 20:06

Road Trips, Ancestors, and Friends

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today was a travel day. We left Munich this morning and drove to the town of Hochstadt, which is near the city of Speyer near the Rhein River. Hochstadt is composed of two older towns, Oberhochstadt and Niederhochstadt which were merged in 1978. It is a town surrounded by vineyards where most of the businesses are associated with growing grapes, or making wine. It is also where Judy’s some of Judy’s mother’s relatives come from, as did that of Elvis Presley, whose family name in Germany was Pressler, plenty of them in Hochstadt and there even is an Elvis Presley Strasse there.

Her part of the family left Niederhochstadt for the Ukraine in 1801 during the Napoleonic wars at the invitation of Catherine the Great who had invited Germans to settle parts of Russian earlier. They stayed in Russian until 1870 when they emigrated to the United States and settled in Nebraska in a largely German community. They were pretty insulated as both Judy’s grandmother and mother didn’t learn English until they went to school, her mother over 50 years after the family settled in Nebraska. By the way, the next time someone bitches about immigrants who haven’t yet learned the language, let them know that this was common among almost every group of immigrants that came to the United States, including the white ones from Germany, Italy, Poland. France, hell I could list almost every non-English nationality or ethnic group that came to the United States from Europe in the 1800 and 1900s. But as always I digress, not that it wasn’t important…

That visit was interesting, the town has a population of only 2,500 or so and so we went to it, got out of the car and started asking questions. The cool thing about knowing the language and the culture of Germany is that I feel comfortable being polite and asking people questions and it takes them a while to figure out that I am American, but anyway I digress again. The cool thing about this visit was just how helpful people were, in fact one older woman, who was really helpful was surprised as hell to find out her birth family name, Peter, was the same as Judy’s ancestors there. We both drive and walked around the town, finally stopping in the cemetery where we saw a good number of gravestones marked with the last name Peter. For Judy it was very special and though she told me, I can only imagine what a feeling it was to walk the same streets and by the same buildings that her ancestors walked over two centuries ago.

After that we drove up to our friends Gottfried and Hannelore who we have now known over thirty years. We first met when I was stationed in Wiesbaden as a young Army lieutenant. We will be with them until we drive back to Munich on Wednesday. They are wonderful people and we had a great night sharing stories and photos from the past decade.

Anyway, have a great day and hopefully, internet connection permitting I will will have something tomorrow.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 19, 2017 · 19:19

“A New Way of Seeing Things” the Value of Travel

Judy with one of the barmaids that she has gotten to know the last four years at Oktoberfest

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

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.”

We are in traveling in Germany for the Oktoberfest, to see friends, and for me to visit some 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 almost one in the morning here and we need to get up a bit earlier than we did today when my lack of sleep cause of the six hour time difference between here and now finally caught up with me.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 17, 2017 · 03:22

Saturday Football in Munich

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Judy and I arrived in Munich Saturday morning and then did a few things that we needed to do. Our hotel room wasn’t ready when we got there so we walked down to our favorite local restaurant and had lunch, meeting up with people we have gotten to know over the past few years there, before getting our room.

Judy was exhausted as she didn’t get any sleep on the flight so she took a nap as I picked up a few things that we needed for our stay that were not cost effective to pack for the flight. After I did that I took a shower and changed my clothes and proceeded to the hotel bar to watch football.

Of course, who wouldn’t watch football on Saturday afternoon? Actually, I seldom do, unless it something really special, but I digress, for you see the football I like the best is called soccer by Americans, and I love watching the high performing teams of the various European leagues as well as the Champions League. My love for the game began during my first tour in Germany and somehow I became a fan of Bayern Munich, and I have remained one since. The fact is that they are the European equivalent of a team like the New York Yankees. They have won about 26 Bundesliga cups, and four European Champions League titles. Many of their current and former players play on the highest level national teams in the sport.

While Judy slept I went down to the hotel bar to watch the Bayern game against Mainz. The outcome was not a surprise and Bayern defeated Mainz by a score of 4-0. I also got to watch highlights of other games going on. While I was watching the game I was able to join in the conversation with the others around the bar. For me it was really cool, since I was the token American and conversing in German with the local fans of Bayern around the bar. I have to admit it was a lot of fun, as was being able to converse with Bayern fans at the fest and at a local restaurant later. Most were taken aback by my ability to speak with the intelligently about the team, and the league in German, especially when they found out that I was American. One diehard even asked how I became aBayern Munchen fan which I had to explain went back to my first tour in Germany in the mid 1980s.

Today I will go to Dachau and in the evening Judy and I will go to meet a couple for dinner in one of towns just outside of Munich.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 15, 2017 · 06:30

Another Pilgrimage to the Church of Beer

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today we fly to Germany for the Oktoberfest in Munich and to see old friends who live in the state of Hessen, not far from Wiesbaden and Limburg in the Taunus Mountains.

This our fourth trip in as many years to Munich for Oktoberfest, and ever since the first trip we have tried to see and experience different things besides the Fest. As a historian who has spent much of my life researching and writing about Germany from unification until the end of the Second World War, I can always find something to see and do and still have time for some revelry and great beer. Last year we got to Salzburg Austria, Nuremberg where we went to the Nuremberg Trial museum and the actual courtroom where those trials occurred. We visited the Dachau Concentration Camp, as well at the Deutsches Museum, which is similar to the different parts of the Smithsonian.

Last year we had great weather, this year it looks like the weather won’t be so great. The first four or five days temperatures will be in the 50s for highs, 40s for lows with a lot of rain in the forecast, you win some and you lose some but we will enjoy ourselves. Heck, we’ll even see Neil Diamond’s 50th anniversary tour concert while in Munich. I have some plans for things I want to see both around Munich and near where our friends live, and on the way up to our friends we’ll get a chance to see the town where at least part of Judy’s mother’s family was from. While in Munich I went to see the memorial to Sophie School and the other anti-Nazis of the White Rose circle, and while with our friends visit the memorial to the victims of the Nazi T-4 Euthanasia program at Hadamar. Depending on what time we have and the weather I have some other things I would like to se as well.

But anyway. I will keep posting while we are away, so until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 1, 2017 · 06:30

Whirlwind Trips

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I’m back from my whirlwind trip to Houston and my denominational chaplain training symposium. It was good to see my bishop and colleagues but the trip was exhausting and my time there too short because of how the trip coincided with my transfer just eight days before my departure and the scheduled Gettysburg Staff Ride this week. Thankfully I only had to deal with one time zone and I had no flight delays or glitches with anything along the way. Even so the schedule of the trip meant that I missed the first day and a half and the last day, in all I was in Houston for forty hours before I came home.

Over the past few days I have had little sleep and some really crazy dreams and nightmares, including one at about 1:30 in the morning on Saturday in which I thought that it was 5:15 Sunday morning and that I was going to miss my flight home. I ran to get packed then realized something was wrong. Looking at the hotel room clock I noticed the time and realized that it was not Sunday but Saturday. The adrenaline was pumping so hard that it took forever to get back to sleep, but I digress.

We discussed issues related to ethics, priestly vocation, grief and loss, as well as issues that we face in our various types of chaplaincy. It was definitely worth going but hopefully knowing the dates of next year’s conference and assuming that I am still in my current job I will be able to succeed in making this a less hectic trip.

Anyway, it has been a whirlwind weekend and the new week has begun.

Pray for me a sinner,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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