9 January 2011 - Weimar

I had the sudden urge to get out of the house and explore this weekend. As is typical with me, I started with availability of Starwood properties and saw, to my delight, that the Hotel Elephant in Weimar was only €99/night. Deal! For reference purposes, the Hotel Elephant is part of their Luxury Collection and for the most part is either fully booked or up in the €300 range. Yes, I have been stalking it. So anyway, it seemed like an omen and I booked a night. Of course then I had to remember why I wanted to go to Weimar.... Nearly a year ago when a friend and I went to Leipzig (see the 7 March 2010 posting), there was some sort of reference to Weimar, so I assumed there must be something to see, so I bought a train ticket and was off, with no discernible plan.

Weimar is about a 2.5 hour train ride on the IC (Inter City, not to be confused with the higher-speed Inter City Express). I could pick up the train right here at the Südbah

nhof station a couple of blocks from my house, which was an added bonus. I somehow scored a compartment all to myself, so it was quite a pleasant ride. I was a bit disturbed, though, to see what appeared to be quite massive flooding of fields and lowlands, which appears to be the result of the melting of the massive snow that fell on Germany around the holidays. I continued to be amazed both in Weimar with the swollen Ilm River as well as on the way home at the continued high water levels. The picture here is not a great one because the train was going so quickly, but you get the idea with the road disappearing into a giant puddle.

Hotel Elephant is located right on the Marktplatz, so it is in the heart of the old town. I had looked at the hotel's web site and it said that it was about a mile from the train station. I only had a small overnight bag, so when I arrived (without a map), I pretty much just started following people to what I figured must be the main drag of town. With the assistance of my BlackBerry GPS, I made it there in a more or less direct route, to the extent a direct route is ever possible in a small town with twisting, turning streets at not-exactly right angles. I was able to conduct the hotel check-in entirely in German, which always pleases me. Yes, I'm pretty sure they realize I'm not German, but the fact that people don't immediately switch to English always delights me. They gave me a nice suite with a view overlooking the town square. Really nice property if anyone is ever thinking of visiting. I also enjoyed the large and rather heavy brass elephant pendant attached to my old-school key. You know, the type where you leave the key at the front desk when you leave. Love it!

In a nutshell, Weimar has a rich cultural history, hailing as home at one time or another to Goethe, Schiller, Bach and Liszt, among others (Bach being the link I recalled from the Wartburg stop en route to Leipzig). You might also associate Weimar with the Weimar Republic of Germany from 1913-1933, which would not be a misnomer since the republic's constitution was drafted in Weimar since Berlin had a lot of violent demonstrations that caused the National Assembly to consider it (Berlin) not safe for meeting. Hence Weimar. Weimar also was the start of the Bauhaus movement in the late 1910s. Think Walter Gropius and you will be transported to art history as it relates to architecture. It also, unfortunately, has a dark history in that the Buchenwald concentration camp was only about 8 kilometers from Weimar. Weimar was part of East Germany until the fall of the wall.

Weimar today seems to be mostly a tourist destination primarily focused on the intelligentsia who have lived there throughout the years. (For those interested, Liszt's 200th birthday will be celebrated this year!) It is also home to the Onion Festival. Some things I cannot make up. And no, no relation to The Onion.

All in all, it was a delightful old city. I mostly just wandered around. I was particularly intrigued by the ruins of what appears to be a cathedral near the Ilm. The ruins were magnificent. I will have to dig deeper for the rest of the story. But I highly recommend it to others. But I make no promises on either the Onion Festival or the celebration of Liszt's birthday.....

1 January 2011 - Silvester in Frankfurt

Tonight was my first opportunity to celebrate Silvester (New Year's Eve) in Germany. It is a bit different from the parties and other celebrations I have attended in the US, including the ball drop in Times Square in New York in frigid cold weather. Here, or at least in Frankfurt, there is less of a countdown atmosphere and more emphasis on, well, other things.

First, I did a bit of research on why it is called Silvester. I have only come up with a partial answer, which dates back to Pope Sylvester 1 in the 4th century, whose feast day is 31 December. Apparently, the day became associated with New Year's Eve in 1582 when the Gregorian calendar was updated and the last day became 31 December. Or something like that. (This does not, of course, explain the different spelling.) That said, however, some of the traditions celebrated by Germans can apparently be traced back to some pagan practices of Germanic tribes that also occurred at the end of the year. If you want some deep history, there is a pretty good summary at http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091231-16425.html.

One of the traditions I have heard about is not quite so old, but is perhaps even more fascinating than some of the pagan traditions. And that is the viewing of a play titled, "Dinner for One." The play is a British play from the 20s and is apparently not very popular in the UK itself, but has become something of a holiday cult elsewhere. It is one of the few clips that is played without German voiceovers, in fact. A black and white version from the early 1960s appears to be the definitive version and it's relatively short (you can view it on YouTube), only about 10 minutes. As far as I can tell, an old woman invites four of her friends to dinner, but apparently they have all died, so her butler plays their parts, including drinking the wine that comes with each course, so he becomes increasingly inebriated. That's pretty much it. Oh, and references to, "same procedure as last year." What is interesting is that this is not only a German classic now. A Norwegian friend said that it is also popular there, though they watch it on 23 December and stole the tradition from the Swedes. Who knew? Anyway, more information on the play if you're now hopelessly intrigued is available at Wikipedia (where else?) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_one.

Another tradition is fireworks. This dates back to some of the pagan practices and the Teutons freaking out about the sun during the winter and also relates to some pagan practices related to noise. So when my neighbors invited me to dinner (for more than one) and then fireworks at the river, I assumed that the city of Frankfurt had a big fireworks show each year. Not so much. Essentially, it is a free-for-all with people showing up and setting off their fireworks at random. This began a bit before midnight and continued in earnest for a good half hour into the new year. And these were pretty big fireworks, not just sparklers and things like that. I'm not sure where they buy these, but everyone seemed to have them. No regulation whatsoever in the use of said fireworks. We hung back a bit from the river under a tree and were still alarmed at times by what people were doing and how the fireworks were being lit and set off. But it was truly amazing. Something about the randomness and so many people setting off so many fireworks at the same time made for a near continuous "finale" of fireworks.

Of course, no German celebration would be complete without consumption of alcoholic beverages. I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but apparently open containers are not an issue here. Sometimes during the summer (especially for things like bachelor parties) you see people wandering around with an entire bottle of wine or prosecco just drinking from it on the streets, and of course consumption of beer from glass bottles. No, not even in a brown paper bag. It takes some getting used to. Tonight was this taken to a higher level, with people really trashed and walking around still drinking and yes, still lighting fireworks. This would be a recipe for disaster and a lot of litigation in the US, but somehow it seems to work here. I should, in all fairness, note that our merry band did bring a bottle of prosecco and some cassis syrup for some New Year's Eve Kir Royale action. But we most assuredly did not drink from the bottle!

A few other minor differences from the US. In the US, there tends to be a bit more sparkling and bling involved, generally and in attire. Um, I was "overblinged" this evening. It is apparently a bit more casual here. Perhaps there are more formal events, though. The other thing that I find extremely charming is the tendency of people to text greetings shortly after the new year. I love this. There is nothing more charming than getting texts from my peeps while standing by the river in the smoke-filled air watching fireworks by drunken strangers. Okay, I guess you have to be there.

Meanwhile, it is past 2:00 AM and people are still setting off fireworks in my neighborhood.

If I haven't said it before, I love Germany. Love it, love it, love it!