Some Memories of Germany

I thought it might be of some interest to make note of a few things from the times I've been to Germany; the last unfortunately being in March 1995. So keep in mind, my experiences are dated, and they should not be taken for what is or what is not going on in Germany today. I traveled into the old East Germany well back in the mid 1980s (I went to Berlin by train), and on that occasion, I was in Germany for almost 5 weeks, which was the longest of my stays there.

I absolutely LOVE Frankfurt, Germany! It is really such a collection of people from all over the world, not just Germans. It is NOT what most Americans would think of as a typical German city. Something like 90% of Frankfurt was destroyed in World War II and essentially a new city has arisen since the end of the war. It has a very modern feel, especially in what we would call the downtown area, but there are still sections where you can experience the "old" city, where some neighborhoods survived the bombings, or where the Germans rebuilt homes and buildings with as many of the old blueprints as possible. From what I understand, my favorite restaurant, the "Dippegucker am Hauptbahnhof" (Hauptbahnhof=the main train station), located right across the street from the main train station, closed a few years ago. In Hessian dialect in the Frankfurt area, a "Dippe," is a pot, but a little further north of Frankfurt, it is called a "Dibbe."  "Gucker" is someone who "looks or peeks," so thus the "Dippegucker" is a "pot looker," or someone who peeks into a pot to see what's cooking. This restaurant served the best German draft beer that I've EVER had, "Hannen Alt," what Germans call an "Altbier;" that is, ale.* This is a kind of brown ale, not that thick, syrupy dark beer, akin to stout or porter, which many American think of as being typical of German beer (it is NOT really typical, by the way.) The foam clings to the glass clear to the bottom. Gee, I'm thirsty! I've found some American mircobrews that are close to this beer, but not really quite the same, and besides that, there are a couple of very good English brown ales.

The menu at the restaurant was a mixture of German, including Hessian, and international. To me, if you go to another country, you should want to sample the national and local foods, despite any "finickiness" you might have about food. That's all part of visiting another place. Germany is full of McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, etc. (by the way, they ALL serve beer and wine, as it is a way of life in Germany), but why go all that way to get a Big Mac, when you can get that just down the street from your house in America? When in Germany, you've got to try Sauerbraten, a marinated beef roast, and Schnitzel, typically a cutlet of pork or veal, often, but not always, breaded and fried, and served in a variety of ways, the most famous being Wiener Schnitzel, which is Viennese style. Vienna was the capital of the German Empire for centuries. Of course, you can't pass up the tremendous variety of sausages, including something dear to the hearts of many Americans, "Bratwurst!" Further, there is "Currywurst," which is a sausage smothered in ketchup, curry powder, and paprika, very common in Berlin, but in other parts of the country too (in some cases, Germans have now combined the topping ingredients into a sauce, which they just add to the sausage, instead of adding the ingredients separately). In the state of Hessen (Wiesbaden is the capital), apple wine is very popular, in fact, they are known for apple wine, or "Apfelwein," in standard German, but "Ebbelwei", or "Ebbelwoi," in Hessisch (Hessian), depending on where you are from.

Something very strange to Americans is common in German restaurants. On my first trip to Germany, and I believe on my first day there, I was in the "Dippegucker" restaurant at a small table. The place was packed. A guy came in and walked over to my table, where he proceeded to ask me (in German) if he could sit with me at my table. I was absolutely stunned, as that is just inconceivable for Americans. I really didn't know what to say, but I accepted. He sat down and of course found out that I was an American (I don't know about now, but back then all German school kids were required to take at least three years of English. This guy was not a school kid, but maybe in his early 20s). He was visiting Frankfurt from a town just a few miles from Hitler's old villa in Berchtesgarten, if you remember your history. This was in the 1980s, and for those of you old enough to remember, "homelessness" and "street people" were a common site in American cities, and news stories about the problem were also common. Well, it turned out that this guy had seen a story about Chicago on a German news segment. He said, "It is really a shame about Chicago." My first thoughts were, "Oh hell, what happened to Chicago?" The way he said it, so sad and concerned, I thought there must have been a major catastrophe. I asked him what he meant, and he said something like, "Oh, Chicago is really down and out now. Everybody has to live on the streets. It's really terrible!" Well, I chuckled a bit and explained to him that Chicago was a very wealthy city and that not everyone lived on the streets, by far. (I guess I could have said "except Chicago Cubs fans.") It just shows how powerful news is in our lives.

German cities and towns are full of small hotels, as well as the better known (and much more expensive) "brand name" hotels, like Sheraton, Hilton or Holiday Inn, or their own German "brand name" hotels, the names of which escape me at the moment. If you go in summer weather, air conditioning is NOT always common in the smaller hotels, or at least it wasn't, keeping in mind my dated experience, but when checking on a room, you should ask about air conditioning. You'll almost always find a small refrigerator stocked, with what else, BEER, Coke (back then, usually in small bottles!), maybe some apple juice, and some cold sausages. Again, I'm sure the fancier hotels have much more elaborate foods and beverages available in each room. Of course, these items are not free, and they can be quite expensive at times. Hotel rates almost always include breakfast, "Frühstück," which is what we usually refer to as "Continental breakfast," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Anyway, it varies from place to place, and again, I'm sure the big hotel chains offer much more, but the smaller hotels typically offer fresh baked rolls (often like what we call Kaiser rolls), some type of brown bread (rye), sliced cheeses, sliced cold cuts (Aufschnitt), maybe some cheese spread in small containers, jam, butter, and maybe honey. German breads are not usually like ours. They are substantial, that is, they are heavy, not the squishy sandwich loaves that we have, although Vienna bread is somewhat common, and most Americans are familiar with that. You'll also have pitchers of orange juice and apple juice, and milk, tea, and coffee on the table. It varies from place to place, but you might have soft-boiled eggs available, and I almost always saw breakfast cereal in the small boxes, although I never ate it. Some places serve you parts of the breakfast, while in others, you go to a large table or tables, where you select the items you want; that is, buffet style. And most places had fresh fruit available, typically apples, which is like one of the national staples.

If you think we have been paying high gasoline prices for the last few years, Germans have always had high fuel costs. Their cars tend to be small, and unlike many Americans, they are not tied to using them constantly. Public transportation in various forms is readily available, and Germans use it, pretty much no matter their social standing. Street cars, trains (both short distance and long distance), and buses are very common, efficient, and reasonably priced. Train stations are common for short distance trains, and you can buy a ticket without much hassle at all. There are like ATM-type machines (we have similar in Cleveland), where you can insert your money, and get a ticket for just about anywhere in a metro area. If I remember right, for long distance trains; that is, out of the immediate metro area, you do have to go to a ticket window. With "terrorism" a threat in Germany, too, some procedures may now have changed since my trips over there.

While this is a generalization, Germans in the south, including Austria, are much more similar to Americans in their demeanor. They are very friendly and gregarious, and what we would call "chummy." As you go above the middle of Germany, the further north you go, the people's characteristics do change. North Germans tend to be much more reserved and laid back. Sometimes, Americans have mistaken this as a dislike for Americans, but most times, it really isn't. They act this way with other Germans, too. If you go way up north, around Hamburg and Bremen, for instance, people seem to be downright cold, but again, it is just their nature in that part of the country. While Berlin is in the north, people there tend to be a whole different sort. They are more friendly, and even they think people in Hamburg are kind of "cold." I guess you could say, "a cold hamburger." (Okay, no nasty remarks!)

Well, I mentioned my trip from the old "West" Germany into "East" Germany in the mid 1980s. Actually, I was going to (West) Berlin. In case you were unaware of it, West Berlin was a city that was surrounded by the Communist East Germany. It was like an island, if you will. I went by train, leaving from Frankfurt and heading north, if I remember right, to Hamburg, where I spent a few days. The old border between east and west was not far from Hamburg. I got the train from Hamburg to the little town of Büchen, which was the crossing point into East Germany, and where East German armed guards (I'd call them soldiers) came on board and asked for passports and travel visas. (East Germany, in spite of belonging to the "Worker Paradise," desperately needed money, especially the then West German Mark, or even more so, American dollars, so they charged every passenger a special travel visa fee, just for the "right" to travel through East Germany. I don't remember the exchange rate, but it was only equivalent to a couple of dollars (I had West German Marks). Nothing about the "decadent West," when it came to western money. They could have taken lessons from some of our money grubbers, "Get the money! Get the money!") Anyway, the guards would ask you why you were traveling and how long you were going to stay. Guards in towers along the track had machine guns pointed at the train, and there were miles and miles of barbed wire strung along the track. The East Germans ran the barbed wire along the tracks like for a mile or so inside their territory, to prevent one of their own people from running and jumping on a train bound in the West German direction. Incredible!!! Americans who never experienced this kind of thing first hand can't even imagine. Watching it on the news just didn't do it.

Of course, Randy, never one to EVER pick a good time for ANYTHING, chose this time, when East-West tensions were heating up due to a scandal in the West German government, where some officials (called "moles") had passed on info to the East Germans. Both sides were showing extreme caution, and checking many things thoroughly, although with German travelers, more so than Americans. I was in Berlin for about a week, if I recall, and when I went back to Frankfurt, the route was different, going down near the Czech border, before heading west. There was an Ethiopian guy on the train in my compartment. Each compartment could hold 6 to 8 people, and there was a middle-aged German couple sitting opposite me, a German man sitting next to me (like maybe mid to late 20s, from near Stuttgart), and this Ethiopian man, probably in his 20s, sitting next to the German couple. When we got to the border, now to cross into West Germany, the West German armed guards came on board. They checked passports and whatever West German citizens carried back then (maybe they had passports, too.) Well, when they got to the Ethiopian, they asked him questions (he didn't speak German or English, but French). The young German guy next to me spoke pretty good French (from what I could tell), and they used him to communicate with the guy. Just a little history first, Ethiopia was in the Soviet orbit at that time. While he was Ethiopian by nationality, he had gone to school in Moscow, and had been issued a Soviet passport for his trip. As I mentioned earlier, there were heightened tensions between East and West Germany over espionage, and all of this combined to make life miserable for this young man. They made him open his luggage and they proceeded to examine EVERYTHING!!! I'm not joking here, they even examined his toothbrush! The poor man just felt humiliated, but that's what it was like back then. They were finally satisfied, and the train moved on, and I was glad to get back to Frankfurt, the "Dippegucker" restaurant, and a tall glass of Altbier. "PROST!" (Cheers!)

More in Part Two ...

* It is called "Alt," or "old," referring to the brewing style of old, which uses top-fermenting yeast.

 

I didn't have an actual photo of Altbier from my time in Germany, so I took this photo at home. Altbier and Wurst ... 

WORD HISTORY:
Dear-The ultimate origin of this word is unknown, but it goes back to Old Germanic "diuraz," which "presumably" meant something like, "precious, valued, beloved." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "deore," which meant "precious, beloved, valuable, costly." This then became "dere" before the modern form. The noun form for a loved one developed from the adjective circa 1400. The adverbial form, "dearly," goes back to Old English "deorlice," and meant "preciously, worthily." The other Germanic languages have: German "teuer" (expensive, costly, but also beloved, dear, although this meaning is less common nowadays), Low German Saxon "düür" (expensive), West Frisian "djoer" (expensive, costly), Dutch "duur" (expensive, costly), Icelandic "dýr" (expensive), Danish "dyre" (expensive, costly), Norwegian "dyr(e)" (expensive) and Swedish "dyr(a)" (expensive).