Old Castles, People, and Traditions.

18.7.10--Crimmitschau

This morning I went to mass with Ulrike and Thomas.  It was pretty interesting; basically everything was the same, but in German.  I felt accomplished that I could figure out the Gospel story--Mary Magdalene washing the apostle's feet.  Pretty small, quaint church, with a capacity of maybe 50 or 60, and 30 or so people there.  After church, we had chicken noodle soup, schnitzel, potatoes, and some weird veggies that I'm really not sure what they were, but they were tasty.  After a short nap/chill-time/siesta, Thomas took me to Schloss Blankenhain, which was a small castle owned by a knight, that has since then been converted into a large open-air museum (consisting of several other buildings in the dorf).  The big main part is a farming museum, but it also showed the life of the people who lived in the castle (the nursery had a kick-ass castle dollhouse), as well as various other things.  Some of the other buildings were a brewery, an old school (lots of DDR stuff; young pioneers etc), and a windmill/miller's house.  It was interesting.  Then we went back and had some dinner and just chilled.


19.7.10--Crimmitschau, Zug

Today Thomas and Ulrike had to work, so Thomas called up one of Laura's (one of his daughters...both of them were away this weekend so I didn't get to meet them) friends, Julia, to show me around Crimmitschau.  We walked around the whole small city (took about 2.5 hours and she was running out of things to show me by the end).  We saw the theatre, city hall, school, church, cemetary (saw my great-great-uncle's grave), and some villas.  We also stopped for an ice cream, and I had nutella ice cream, which was FABULOUS.  I returned to the house for lunch, which was chili and noodles.  The noodles were interesting...they were really long skinny tubes...difficult to eat with chili.  Tasty though.  The rest of the day was just chillin around the house til I had to leave for my train (which was pretty late...I got back to Holzkirchen around 1:15 am).


Various things I noticed/found interesting this weekend:

-This was the first time I've met someone who never learned how to drive a car (my great great aunt, Maria).  It was too expensive in the DDR, and by the time the wall fell, she was too old to bother with it.
-It was really interesting getting to know people who lived/grew up in the DDR--lots of different things...It's very different learning about it in a book/from news/movies and actually living through it.
-Thomas's car takes Gas.  But not gas like we know it (gasoline). It is 60% butane, and 40% propane.  It's cheaper than Benzine or Diesel (the two more common forms of fuel), and it is better for the environment, and you don't have to fill up as often.  The only reason that everyone doesn't use it is because it costs 2-3000 Euros to make your car compatible.
-In Germany, when a kid is starting school, he/she receives a big cone-shaped bag filled with candy [Schultüten-- http://www.sights-and-culture.com/Germany/Customs/School-beginners.html ] (I learned this from Julia, as well as from my host family)
-All old people, wherever you are, are always trying to feed you.


Thats all for now, I gotta leave soon for a shooting range...more on that later!