People & Places

TO ALL

My latest adventure in Europe was followed immediately by a trip to the States (more about that later) and thus I am just now getting around to writing about it. In the meantime I have seen some of you personally and told you about various parts of this recent trip, but nonetheless an “official report” seems in order. Two friends of mine from Tacoma, WA – Rinnie and Jennifer Lind -- arrived in Germany on October 19^th and we spent 3 weeks together visiting various acquaintances of theirs in Europe and seeing the sights along the way. As you might surmise from that one sentence summary, the people were the highlight of this trip although the sights were certainly not UNimpressive. The sights included Strasbourg France . . . . Rothenburg and Schwabish Hall, Germany . . . . Perouges, Marseille, Cassis, and Avignon France . . . Geneva, Gryon and Montreux, Switzerland. The people included Robbie Rayburn, Jan Stutheit, Edith Schaeffer and Debby Schaeffer Middelman.

Robbie Rayburn is the son of Dr. Robert Rayburn, my absolute all-time favorite preacher and pastor of Faith Presbyterian Church in Tacoma Washington. Faith Pres is the home of Covenant High School, Deanna’s soon to be alma mater. I have read scores of Dr. Rayburn’s sermons either online or as they arrive in the mail and have even heard a few of them in person and I have been greatly influenced and encouraged by him. Robbie Rayburn, his son, arrived in Germany in September and is attending a German language school in a little out-of-the-way town in Bavaria called Horb am Neckar. He lives in an even smaller town near Horb called Muhlen with a German family who speak no English. He is preparing to take a language test that will allow him to go to a German university – probably Tubingen -- for a term, the ultimate goal being to have a strong enough command of the German language to read German theological works. After his term in Germany he plans to return to Covenant College / Seminary in Chattanooga, Tennessee and eventually to pastor a church. I think I have all that straight. Robbie is a delightful young man and I thoroughly enjoyed the day and a half we spent with him. Among other things I got a private lesson on how to pronounce German umlauts and learned a couple of German phrases that I have been wishing I had in my repertoire. At the end of our time together, Robbie told me that I had forced him to change his view of women driver’s. I think that was a comment about my guts as opposed to my skill, but I’m taking it as a compliment nonetheless.

Rinnie, Rob, and Nancy

On our way to visit Robbie, we stopped in Baden-Baden and toured the ruins of some Roman baths. The ruins were enclosed in a building and the tour included a very informative audio guide. I now have a little better idea of how Roman baths “work.” We picked Robbie up in Muhlen and took him with us to Strasbourg France – which is about an hour away – or two hours depending on umleitungen (detours) and how many times you get lost! Strasbourg is in a part of France called the Alsace which was actually part of Germany at various times in its history. One of the main attractions in Strasbourg is its cathedral which is similar in style to the one in Koln but has only one spire. Where the second spire should / could be is a viewing platform. We climbed the 330 steps to the viewing area and were thoroughly wowwed by the view. The other highlight of our time in Strasbourg was a boat trip around the Altstadt (Old Town). Somehow with the addition of a canal and a couple of locks the Ill River has been routed in such a way that it is possible to go completely around the Altstadt by boat, sailing by a large modern complex that houses the European Parliament also in the process.

Strasbourg Cathedral

Strasbourg Cathedral

View from the Strasbourg Cathedral

European Union
Parliament Buildings

Our next excursion was a two day trip to Rothenburg with an impromptu stop along the way in Schwabish Hall and a quick stop in Wurzberg on the way home. I have written about Wurzberg before and I will save Schwabish Hall for a future travelogue since Mike has a retreat scheduled there in a couple of weeks. In Rothenburg, we did some of the usual things – the Night Watchman tour, etc - and a couple of new things as well. Two of the new things we did were actually recommended by the Night Watchman as cures for insomnia. We were definitely not plagued with insomnia but we “walked the wall” and “went to hell” anyway and found both to be quite pleasing experiences. OK, so “Hell” is a very old tavern in Rothenburg. According to the Night Watchman “if you are caught wandering the streets at night and told to go to hell, it is a good recommendation.” We don’t know what it’s like there late at night, but we can vouch for the fact that they serve good food around 6:00PM. “Walking the wall” took us to some parts of the town that I had not been before and provided lots and lots of photo ops.

The Rothenburg Wall

To Hell (the tavern that is)

Our next excursion took us away from Heidelberg for almost two weeks and included various towns in southern France and Switzerland. Our first destination was Marseille which is on the Mediterranean coast of France although not technically part of the French Riviera. It is in an area of France called the Provence. On the way to Marseille we happened onto a little town called Perouges. We owe our good fortunate to Rinnie’s intuition. We were toodling down Autobahn 7 about 1:00 in the afternoon well ahead of schedule when Rinnie said, “I’m feeling the need for a break. Could we take this next exit and check out that little town over there on the hill?” Being the basically submissive person that I am (not) I did as I was told and was richly rewarded. Perouges is a backdoor that Rick Steve’s has not yet discovered (Debbie Haynes take note). As I think about how to describe it, I am reminded of a comment of Robbie Rayburn’s – “The trouble with Germany is that every little town is picturesque. There are no plain towns.” So . . . I don’t want to called Perouges a picturesque little town as that would, in effect, consign it to being average. But how do I describe it? Very old buildings made of uncut stone and mortar, narrow cobblestone streets, and a delicious town specialty called “galette” sitting in various bakery windows waiting to be bought and consumed. That’s the best I can do for a description. The best I could do with the galette was to stop after the second piece. Galette could easily be mistaken for cheese pizza as far as its size, shape and even color, but tastewise it’s totally different. It is more of a dessert pastry with a lemony flavor. Ummm.

Perouges

Galette

On to Marseille (pronounced mar-say). We were depending on a previously proven website called “mappy.com” to get us to Jan Stutheit’s apartment in Marseille and that turned out to be a big mistake. Mappy’s direction were technically correct but of absolutely no practical value. Let’s just say that we made several phone calls to Jan and lots of U-turns before we finally found Jan’s apartment . Jan is a single missionary who works for MTW (Mission to the World – the Presbyterian Church of America’s mission agency) but is presently on loan to AWM (Arab World Ministries – a cooperative organization involving several denominations). She writes Bible studies designed specifically for use in Arab countries. She has lived in Morocco and France for most of her adult life and speaks French fluently. In Morocco she worked as a translator at the US Embassy. Jan lives in a two bedroom apartment on the 4^th floor of a large apartment complex. Her apartment has 3 separate balconies looking out onto various parts of the city – one even has a view of the Mediterranean Sea. She is a very interesting person to talk to, a great tour guide and a wonderful cook, but also very exacting as a hostess and very particular about things related to her apartment --- to the degree that we were all rather relieved when it was time to move on. We did do some really interesting things however while we were at her house We took a spectacular hike along the Mediterranean coast, visited Cassis and Aix-en-Provence, and toured Nortre-Dame de la Garde (Marseille’s cathedral) and Chateau d’If (pronounced deef).

Trailhead near Jan's house

Notre-Dame de la Garde

Notre-Dame de la Garde

Jennifer, Rennie, Jan

Chateau D’If is the French version of Alcatraz - an island fortress just ouside the Marseille harbor accessible only by boat. It is the setting for the Alexander Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo and, more importantly, the unhappy “home” of a lot of French Hugenots who were imprisoned following the revoking of the Edict of Nantes which had allowed Protestants to freely practice their religion in France.

Chateau d'If

Chateau d'IF interior courtyar

In Cassis we really wanted to take a boat tour to the calangues but somehow they weren’t running the day we were there. I convinced Rinnie and Jennifer to go back to Cassis when we left Jan’s house, but again we got there at the wrong time and the boats weren’t running. This time we were too late in the afternoon. But . . . . kudo’s to Rinnie again. With her knowledge of French and her gregarious personality she was able to convince one of the boat owners to do one more tour – provided we could come up with a total of 10 passengers. Amazingly enough, with a little help from Jennifer, she was able to do that too – and off we sailed. Several of the passengers they rounded up were young doctors and nurses from Argentina and various other countries who were doing internships at a hospital in Lyon, France. They were very friendly and fun to talk to. Calangues are narrow inlets along the coast – sort of like miniature fjords with rock walls, each having a small beach at it’s head. We visited 3 calangues and watched a spectacular sunset as we sailed back to Cassis. The trip was well worth the effort. It reminded me somewhat of houseboating on Lake Powell – one of my all time favorite vacations.

En route to Cassis

We had a couple of extra days in between Jan’s house and our next stop in Gryon, Switzerland. We ended up spending one of them at Gorges du Verdon and one at Avignon. Gorges du Verdon is a large canyon – not quite as spectacular as the Grand Canyon but close. We spent some time exploring on the way to the canyon (particularly in a little town at the east end of the canyon called Moustiers Ste-Marie) and only had time to see about a third of the canyon but it was enough to whet my fancy for more. There are roads on both rims of the canyon and we chose the south rim to avoid looking into the late afternoon sun. It was a really spectacular drive with lots of scenic viewpoints for stopping and gawking. (Scenic turnouts are usually hard to come by in Europe). Hopefully Mike and I can go back there before we leave Europe.

Gorges du Verdon

Avignon’s (pronounced AH-veen-yo) is inland from the Mediterranean about 50 miles. It’s claims to fame are the St. Benezet Bridge and the Palace of the Popes. The St. Benezet Bridge (Pont d’Avignon) was the only bridge crossing the Rhone River during the Middle Ages and also the subject of a nursery rhyme -- not one with which I was familiar prior to being enlightened by Rinnie and Jennifer. The Palace of the Popes is a large complex built from scratch in the 1300’s to house the pope (several of them actually) and keep the entire Catholic Church safely away from Rome until a dispute could be settled over who was the true pope. The audio guide here included entirely too much information for my taste and I had a hard time retaining anything of what I heard. The sights themselves, however, were really interesting. In case some of you haven’t experienced an “audio guide” they are a museum/palace feature that is really popular here in Europe. Each display in a museum (for example) has a number on it. You check out (or rent, as the case may be) a hand set programmed for your particular language – English, German, Japanese, etc. On your handset you punch in the number of the particular exhibit you are looking at and listen to a talk about what you are seeing. Audio guides are usually much better than actually human tour guides in my opinion. The English is usually better and the accent less extreme. Plus you can start, stop and repeat the recording at will – which is a real asset for someone like me that doesn’t learn well orally.

St. Benezet Bridge

Palace of the Popes from St. Benezet Bridge

Palace of the Popes

Palace of the Popes

Enroute from Avignon to Gryon we spent several rainy hours in Geneva, Switzerland. John Calvin preached in Geneva for many years after being thrown out of France. There is a Reformation Monument there – statues of Calvin, Beza, Zwingli, Luther, etc - and also a relatively new Reformation museum, both of which are interesting.

Reformation Wall

Our purpose in going to Gryon, Switzerland was to visit Debby Middelman (her husband Udo was in the States on a speaking tour) and her mother Edith Schaeffer. Debby’s father is Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Christian philosopher and apologist and founder of L’Abri, now deceased. Rinnie was saved at L’Abri in her early 20’s and lived in Udo and Debby’s home during part of her time there. She has maintained a relationship with them over the years. It was a real privilege to meet Debby and also her mother Edith who is now 91 years old. Edith has limited eye sight due to macular degeneration and requires some assistance in getting around, but her mind is as sharp as a tack. Edith was pretty quiet and let Debby do most of the talking, but it was clear from her facial expressions that she was following intently everything that was said.

Edith Schaeffer, Debbie Middelmann, Jane, Jennifer Lind, and Rinnie Lind

When Francis Schaeffer was alive, he and Edith lived in Huemoz (2 villages away from Gryon) and opened up their home (which they named L’Abri) for people to come and study with them. Debby and Udo lived nearby and helped with the ministry. Various circumstances have resulted in Udo and Debby no longer being directly involved in the teaching at L’Abri, although they do something similar in their own home when Udo is in town. We never actually saw L’Abri except for a sign on the road. We stayed in an apartment above Edith Schaeffer’s house (she calls it “Mon Abri” which means “my shelter”) which is across the road from the Middelman’s home. Our apartment was really rustic but adequate and cozy – enough stimulating books and tapes at hand to keep one busy for a decade or two. Our apartment and several others in the back of Edith’s house serve as student chalets when Udo and Debby have students with them.

Our 3 days in Gryon were really quiet and leisurely. Our #1 priority was to spent time with Debby when she was available. Her view on topics such as Christian parenting, homeschooling, Christian self-help books, the peculiarities of Christians in America, the Iraq War etc were very interesting and insightful, though somewhat more “liberal” in some areas than I would have expected. She may just have been overstating her view to make a point. Rinnie’s #2 priority was to revisit places in the area that she remembered from her time there years ago and to show them to Jennifer. My #2 priority was to prepare for a Bible study I thought I was teaching the day I got back to Heidelberg (it ended up being cancelled!) and also to prepare for a one week apologetics class which I was about to take at the seminary in Tacoma the week before Thanksgiving. We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing, but we did manage to enjoy and soak up some of the beauty of the area as we walked or drove from place to place. Gryon and Huemoz and a larger town in between them called Villar are all ski towns. We were there after the tourists and before the skiers which was perfect timing. The towns were quiet, the countryside was still green, and the views along the road were spectacular. (Try humming the Sound of Music at this point to get the full effect.)

View near Edith's cabin

After Gryon we spent part of a day in Montreux - Rinnie and Jennifer toured Chateau Chillion – and then we headed for Zurich. In Zurich I put Rinnie and Jennifer on a plane headed for Paris and drove home to Heidelberg. I spent one day in Heidelberg -- NOT teaching my Bible study as I had planned – and then caught a military hop to Baltimore the next day. Two days in Baltimore with the Tallents and then a commercial flight to Seattle literally just in time for my class on Monday morning (my plane arrived at 4:00AM, four hours late!)

Chateau de Chillon

My apologetics class was fantastic. I would never have chosen to take apologetics – some how it just didn’t seem interesting to me - but I had sort of made up my mind to be in Tacoma that week before I knew what was going to be offered so I took it anyway. What a blessing! The teacher was superb – both in terms of his teaching skills and his grasp of the content of the class. And the content of the class was extremely valuable. I am so glad I took it. It built on some other things I have been exposed to recently and sort of crystallized my thinking in several areas.

Mike joined me and the kids in Washington for Thanksgiving week. He spent a few days in Lawton on the way moving his mother from an assisted living center to a nursing home in the same town. This was a move that had to happen eventually for financial and medical reasons, and it seemed like it made sense to do it sooner rather than later. The move went really smoothly. Mike’s brother Carl was there also and the two of them had some quality time together.

The five of us Strohm’s spent Thanksgiving weekend together in a cabin on San Juan Island. We ate lots of turkey from the local grocery store deli, did a little bit of driving around the island and went over to Orcas Island on the ferry, watched movies together and slept. It was uneventful but really nice.

Other Strohm news:

Alan has a new car – a 2005 Honda Civic. Deanna now has his old car (the Red Nissan).

Amy got accepted to Western Washington University in Bellingham. She will move up there and start classes in January. She plans to get an Environmental Science degree. Meanwhile she is finishing her AA degree at TCC and working at Grocery Outlet – trying to earn some money to do a road trip with a friend over the Christmas Holidays.

Deanna is glad to be back at Covenant High School and seems to be happily settled in as part of the Kliewer household. She is the only one of our kids who will be coming home to Germany for Christmas.

Mike is still tolerating his job in Heidelberg.

I am up to more mischief as usual. I am going to be in Tacoma for the winter quarter at the seminary. I love Germany, but I miss the intellectual stimulation of the seminary (there’s not much offered in English here in Germany!) I also miss my kids. Mike has graciously agreed to let me be gone for 11 weeks and the Kliewers have agreed to let me stay at their house so I can share Deanna’s car. I plan to leave here a couple of days before New Years – again Space A to Baltimore and then commercial to Seattle – so as to be in Tacoma by Jan 3^rd, the first day of classes. I will be stopping in Colorado for a few days on the way back to Germany.

So, that’s the news from Germany.

Nancy

Luxembourg & Amsterdam

TO ALL

No company and no kids at the moment --- but still there is no grass growing under our feet. Mike had a four-day weekend so we decided to “do” Amsterdam. The weekend before we spent a day in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is about three hours from our house, but it might as well be halfway around the world in terms of the availability of information about it. Rick Steve’s doesn’t cover it in any of his books. No one we know here has been there. Some tour books include it with Belgium and the Netherlands (Benelux) but not the ones we own – except for a freebee from AAA that covers all of Western Europe in the same book. Spangdahlem Air Force Base is about 50 km from Luxembourg -- we spent Friday and Saturday nights there in the guest house – but their PX bookstore had absolutely nothing about Luxembourg. Hummmm.

We found it to be a very interesting city. The city is built on a rock escarpment at the confluence of the Alzette River and the Petrusse River. Because of it’s easy-to-defend location it has been inhabited continuously since 963AD. The rock cliffs are full of tunnels and storage rooms – enough to billet an army – which are known as casemates. Since the casemates are no longer used for defense they are open to the public. There are 2 sets of them – the Bock Casemates and the Petrusse Casemates. We toured the Bock Casemates. Lots of steep, narrow, winding staircases inside the rock itself and interesting views through the openings.

Luxembourg 963 - 1963, 1000+ Years of Luxury

Bock Casemates

Petrusse River

On a grassy area on the river bank below, there was an monument dedicated to “The Unknown Washerwoman.” It was a 30 foot stack of plastic 10 gallon washtubs – all the same size but many different colors. Not as tacky looking as it sounds, actually.

Monument to the Unknown Laundry Woman

In the main part of the city (farther “inland” from the confluence of the two rivers), we happened to wander inside of St. Michael’s Cathedral just as Saturday night mass was beginning. At first we thought the doors were all locked and we were stuck inside until it was over. By the time we finally figured out how to “escape,” we had started to enjoy the organ music and the atmosphere in general, so we ended up staying for the whole service. Of course we couldn’t understand a word the priest said so he could have preached all kinds of heresy – but it was a really nice service!!! The cathedral itself was attractive – not overly ornate. The priest had a great voice for leading liturgy, there was a good sized group of people in attendance and the organ music was wonderful. No danger of us converting to Catholicism but it did feel like we had been to church.

On to Amsterdam. We have owned our 2003 Honda Odyssey for about 2 months now and we really like it. It “arrived” just in time for company and is already well broken in. However, this trip was a first in terms of camping in it – i.e. sleeping in the back. Everything worked out pretty much the same as in the old van – so we are happy campers.

We located (on-line) a campground in Amsterdam that worked out really well – it was out a ways from the center of town but very close to a train station. We arrived about 15 minutes after the office closed on Friday evening and the gate was closed and locked so we had to sleep in the metro parking lot the first night. The next morning we drove in, paid for a spot and didn’t drive out again until two days later. The camping spots were grassy, the toilettes were immaculate, and there was a small grocery store on the grounds. What more could we have asked for – except maybe an electrical outlet for charging up camera and PDA batteries and an ice machine. Oh well. If all Dutch people are like our campground manager, I would describe them as neat, organized and proper like the Germans but twice as cordial and friendly.

The city of Amsterdam has personality – and then some. It does flaunt it’s evil (prostitution, marijuana, etc) in a way that no other European city does, but not to the extent that one cannot ignore the things that are offensive and enjoy the things that are good. Hmmmm – maybe that’s the way Lot rationalized living in Sodom . . . . anyway . . . the uniqueness of Amsterdam can be summed up in a few words: canals, bicycles, flowers, and delftware. If we had spent more time in the countryside, we would probably have to add windmills. (Actually we did see windmills, too, but they were all the tall white pole-type ones like we have in the US).

The canals are arranged in concentric circles – about every third “street” is a canal. The concentric circles are all connected by more canals – sort of like spokes. On either side of the each canal is a narrow street, between the canal and the houses.

The streets are all accessible by car but the preferred form of transportation is the bicycle. There are an absolutely unbelievable number of bicycles in Amsterdam – they are everywhere -- several times more bicycles than cars. And they are quite different than American bicycles. They are engineered so that the rider sits totally upright – back straight – no low profile to cut down on wind resistance like in the US. They are also sturdier. It’s not uncommon to see an adult on a bicycle with a child in front of him (in a sturdy little seat) and another behind him (in another sturdy little seat). It’s also not uncommon to see two adults on the same bike – the second one sitting side-saddle on the rear wheel cover.

The Bike, The Kid, The Windscreen . . .

. . . who could ask for anything more?

When a bicycle so loaded pulls up to a stop light, the rider in back gets off. When the light turns and the bicycle gets moving again, he/she hops back on. The second most preferred method of transportation (after the bicycle) is the street car. There are lots of streetcars in Amsterdam – lots, even by European standards. My pictures of Amsterdam all have streetcar wires running through them. They are impossible to avoid.

The Mint Tower

The canals in Amsterdam are not there as a means of transportation – they are there because they needed someplace to put the water so they could use (or create) land. Moving the water is not all they had to do to build houses. The land they created by draining the water is sandy. So . . . . the city of Amsterdam is not only several feet below sea level, it is literally built on millions and millions of pilings – poles sunk through the sand to firmer ground 30 feet below.

Amsterdam Canal View

Amsterdam Canal Houses

Unfortunately that whole process apparently isn’t foolproof – probably 1 out of 3 houses in Amsterdam leans one way or another – toward the street, away from the street or into the house next to it. For the most part the houses are flush up against each other but they aren’t all one big building divided up vertically (as the row houses were in Dublin) – each house is a separate structure from the one next to it – one room wide, several rooms deep and 3 or 4 stories high. Inspite of all that, things are pretty neat and clean and well-maintained and definitely picturesque.

Middle rowhouse has settled, sagged to the left

window sills on the left are closer to the groundlevel door frames

On to the flowers and the delftware. Obviously the tulip fields aren’t in bloom at this time of year, but the flower market in Amsterdam was incredible. Several blocks of one particular street was lined with semi-permanent flower shops selling every kind of flower, imaginable – potted, cut, silk, dried, you name it -- also bulbs and seeds.

The beauty of the displays themselves was evidenced by the fact that some had “no photography” signs in them. Lots of the flowers were “bulb” type flowers but there were other kinds as well. And ALL very cheap. Mike bought a bag of 100 tulip bulbs for $7.50 euros. He’s planning to give it away as a white elephant gift at Christmastime. We tried to think which of you were into gardening and would enjoy some bulbs from Holland, but we eventually gave up on getting any to the US because (1) they are heavy and (2) there are all kind of customs restrictions on agricultural products. Sorry.

The Flower Market

You are probably all familiar with what delftware is, but here are a couple of things about it you maybe didn’t know. The patterns are adaptations of Chinese patterns that arrived in Holland during the 1600’s when Amsterdam was a major world trading center. The ink that is used to make the patterns is black but something about the firing process causes it to come out blue. “Delft” is the name of the town in the Netherlands where the whole industry got started. Mike remembers that his mother had a couple of delftware platters hanging on the wall in their house growing up – no doubt acquired during their military tour in Germany. He never really knew what they were – now he does.

Delft Store

One other thing about Amsterdam – the most important one as far as Mike is concerned: Anne Frank and her family lived (and hid) there during WWII. Anne Frank’s diary is probably the only book that Mike has ever read in its entirety MORE THAN ONCE in his entire life. He REALLY likes Anne Frank. He was pretty determined to get to Amsterdam, if for no other reason than to see her house. And we did, in fact, tour her house. The tour is a self-paced tour – no furniture in the house, but all the rooms can be seen and there are lots of pictures and quotes from her diary on the walls. It is well done – very sobering and emotional to say the least. The Frank family and 4 other Jews (8 people total) hid in “The Secret Annex” behind Otto Frank’s business (run by a non-Jewish friend while he was in hiding) for 2 years. A month before the liberation they were discovered and taken to various concentration camps. Only Otto Frank survived and eventually he published Anne’s diary. Years later he remarried and he died only fairly recently -- 1980. Quite a story.

Statue of Anne Frank

And that’s my story. Amsterdam really was an interesting town. I could probably go on with “did you knows?” for several more pages, but I’ll refrain. Marseilles, France and L’Abri, Switzerland are next on my agenda. Some friends from Tacoma – Rinnie and Jennifer Lind – arrive here next Wednesday. They are staying several weeks and those are our major destinations.

Not much new in the way of family news, so I close here.

Nancy

Dutch countryside

All Over the Map

TO ALL

I knew someone once who was said to be “all over the map” and I know that wasn’t a compliment, but maybe when applied to one’s physical body as opposed to one’s mental state it’s okay????? I hope so, because my physical body as definitely been all over the map recently. Oh wait! --- my mind has also been severely “boggled.” Darn.

Anyway I’ve just gotten my land legs back again after spending 3 weeks on the road sightseeing with my dad, and brother and Mike and an aunt and uncle (Lynette and Loren, my dad’s youngest sister and husband).

Nancy, Mike, Nancy's Dad, Aunt Lynette

Loren and Lynette have an adult offspring who has recently expressed his concern about all the “material (bleep-bleep-bleep)stuff” that they own that will have to be disposed of when it comes time for them to move to assisted living. If nothing else, the past 3 weeks have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that L and L are no where near ready for assisted living.

Lynette, Bob, Curt

A couple of the places we visited Mike and I had been before – Gimmelwald, Hallstatt, Melk Abbey, Wurzburg and Rothenburg – so I will refrain from waxing eloquently about any of those places again. Suffice it to say that the second time around was just as good as the first. The third time will no doubt be enjoyable too, if any of you decide to come our way and want us to take you there, too.

One little story I must tell about Hallstatt before I go on to the “new”stuff. We were in Hallstatt on a Saturday night and, as luck would have it, our favorite restaurant which we discovered on our first visit there was full. We were really hungry so we were forced to look elsewhere. We ended up at a restaurant with a live band – a jazz big band.

The Hallstat Big Band

Loren is a retired Air Force Band Director and still does lots of gigs with his trumpet on weekends, so he was particularly blown away by the unexpected bonus – a picturesque town, a delightful pension, a great meal and live music to boot. I have it from a pro – these guys (and the female singer) were no slouchy, small town, thrown-together, amateurish group. They were REALLY good. And if Loren hadn’t left his trumpet back in Colorado I have no doubt he would have been right up there with them. Such are the joys of traveling in Europe.

So here are the new places to be wowwed over: Mont Blanc (Chamonix France), the Schilthorn and the Jungfrau (near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland), Wein (Vienna), Austria and Koln (Cologne) Germany.

Mont Blanc (pronounced mohn blah), the Schilthorn and the Jungfrau are all mountain peaks (15,781 ft, 9748 ft and 13,642 ft respectively). I’ve been sort of whispering under my breath for some time now that possibly the Alps might be more spectacular than the Rockies, but telling myself that surely that couldn’t be. However, having now ascended (by gondola) to the top (or nearly the top) of Mont Blanc, the Schilthorn, and the Jungfrau and having heard first-hand the same opinion expressed by my relatives from Colorado, I am now prepared to say unequivocally that the unthinkable is, in fact, true: THE ALPS ARE MORE SPECTACULAR THAN THE ROCKIES – or anything in Washington State for that matter. I keep expecting to be struck dead for saying something so heretical, but so far nothing has happened. Mont Blanc is the tallest peak in Europe and it is only slightly taller than Longs Peak (Rocky Mtn Nat’l Park), but clearly height isn’t the whole story. The Alps are “in your face” in a way that the Rockies are not. They rise up more sharply, are greener at the bottom and more pointy at the top and sport many more glaciers and snowfields and crevasses than any mountain range in the continental US ever dreamed of.

There are gondolas, telepheriques, trams, cable cars and funiculars all over the place in Europe and the result is that the most spectacular sights are a lot more accessible to those of us who are NOT mountaineers. American wilderness-loving “purists” probably find that horrifying, but I am not prepared to join in their harangue. I don’t find beauty to be any less exhilarating when experienced in the company of a few other people than when experienced alone. Plus, all of the above mentioned modes of transportation are more or less silent and non-polluting and the Europeans keep ALL of their countryside so neat and clean and well-maintained that I do not find such visible reminders of human “encroachment” to be offensive at all.

Our three mountaintop experiences were all similar in that they involved fairly expensive gondola rides, awesome views and absolutely PERFECT weather (a major stroke of good luck), but each was also quite different from the others.

Our Mont Blanc trip involved a large 50-people-stuffed-in-a-phone-booth style gondola ride to Plan De Aiguille, another similar ride to Aiguille du Midi and then a smaller 4 person gondola ride to Helbronner.

View from the 4-person gondola to Helbronner

The first 2 rides were pretty much vertical; the third was horizontal, taking us just over the border into Italy. There were spectacular views of Mont Blanc as well as other “dents” and “horns” (though not the Matterhorn) at hand throughout the trip. There were lots of crazy people with crampons and ice picks and ropes doing various crazy things at Aiguille du Midi.

View from Mt. Blanc Gondola

On the ride to Helbronner we looked down on tents pitched in the snow and groups of specks roped together making tracks in the snow fields and skirting the crevasses as they made their way to some destination unknown to us. All the novels I read as a teenager about mountaineers suddenly had a context.

View from the gondola to Helbronner

Getting to the Schilthorn involves a cable train to Grutschalp and a narrow gauge train to Murren and another large 50 person gondola to the Piz Gloria at the top. There is no snow on the Schilthorn this time of year – just rocks and more rocks and distant meadows and incredible views of mountains peaks and glaciers. There were several viewing platforms and a revolving restaurant from which to see it all. The James Bond movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was filmed on the Schilthorn shortly after the tourist facilities there were completed. If I weren’t so adverse to “scary movies” I would rent it tomorrow just for the views.

Nancy and her three friends

The Eiger, The Monch, and the Jungfrau

Our trip to the Jungfraujoch (the saddle of the Jungfrau – -Jungfrau means young lady/virgin/maiden) involved a cable train to Wengen, another cable train to Kleine Scheidegg and another train that went through (i.e. inside) the mountains, to the Jungfraujoch (2 hours total travel time).

View from Kleine Scheidigg

When we got there just before noon the skies were fairly clear and we were able to get good pictures although it was really cold and really windy and we were glad for the indoor viewing areas.

By the time we left a couple of hours later it was completely socked in. There was one place where you could walk out (or ski out in the winter) onto the snow. I have pictures of a flagpole in the midst of a huge snowfield, silhouetted against the blue sky that could easily pass for a picture of Antarctica.

View from the Jungfraujoch

One side of the viewing facility looked down on a huge glacier “flowing” down the mountain away from the visitor’s center. “River of ice” is truly an apt description for a glacier. I’ve seen plenty of “toes” of glaciers in Canada and Alaska, but never looked down on a whole giant river of ice.

View from the Jungfraujoch Vistor's Center

Our base camp for Mont Blanc was a town called Chamonix (pronounced shah-moh-nee). When we arrived in Chamonix at about 7:30 in the evening we faced our first and only real crises of the entire 3 weeks of travel. First we couldn’t find the pension at which we had reserved rooms. When we finally did, it had a sign on it that said “Closed for the season” – not in English or course, so we had to stop and translate to figure out why no one answered our knock. We weren’t sure what to do so we decided to eat dinner. The first restaurant we tried was a dud – high prices, menu only in French, an unappealing selection of entrees and really slow service. Finally we got up and went elsewhere – but not before Mike had managed to find rooms for us via his cell phone. The next restaurant was a winner and by 10:30 we all had full tummies and were tucked into a fairly nice pension with a view of Mont Blanc from the patio and a place to park the car about 10 feet from our room. (This is rare in Europe!) The next morning we discovered that we were also about 3 blocks from the gondola that went up Mont Blanc. All is well that ends well. When we got back home a few days later we discovered a message on our answering machine from a pension where we did, in fact, have reservations. It was not, however, the one with the “closed for the season” sign on the door. Apparently when Mike was making the reservation his finger momentarily shifted down one entry in the tour book from the pension he intended to call. Fortunately we hadn’t given them any money for the reservation – though we probably did give them added cause to wonder about Americans.

Chamonix was a neat little town. Among other things, there was a visiting German “town band” performing in the town square the second night we were there.

Loren actually got to conduct this band. He requested a particular German march that he was familiar with. One thing led to another and he ended up conducting a number. The “real” director, Andreas, was more of a liability than an asset. A lot of the players had a mug of beer close by to sip in between numbers, but the director was more than a little drunk. When he introduced numbers, he talked on and on. During one of his harangues, the band got tired of listening to him and started the next selection without him! One of the members just stood up and counted off and away they went.

Loren and Andreas, German band leader

Later that evening (after the “old people” went to bed!), Mike and I went back “downtown” exploring and came upon a string trio performing in the street. They were from Cracow and they were really good – the relatives really missed out this time – you snooze you loose. (Lynette is also a musician - plays the flute - she and Loren live, eat and breathe music.) I’ve decided that the 3 things that I like most about Europe are (1) the tidy and picturesque countryside, (2) the interesting architecture, and (3) the street performers – L and L call them “buskers”. More about this under Vienna.

Our base camp for ascending the Schilthorn and the Jungfraujoch was a town on the valley floor between the 2 peaks called Lauterbrunnen. (Mike had to miss this part of the trip – he took the train back to Heidelberg – boohoo!.)

We stayed in a bungalow at a campground in Lauterbrunnen. It was located right at the base of a spectacular waterfall. Our bungalow was a little small (Dad, Curt, and I had a room that was wall-to-wall bunks and we had to climb into bed from the foot) but it had a kitchenette and a reasonable-priced restaurant on the grounds which are important features in Switzerland where prices are sky high!

Staubbach Falls, Lauternbrunnen

After a day and a half at home in Heidelberg we set out again for Vienna (Hallstatt on the way – also a little town named Hohenkirchen where we Risch’s think our great grandmother Sophia Hoffman lived before her family immigrated to the US). We did Melk Abbey our first day in Vienna and then kind of an overview of Vienna via public transportation on the second. (Dad and L and L had been to Vienna before -- Mike and I have plenty of time to go back – so we skipped some of the “big” sights like the Schonburg Palace.) After our “overview” we toured the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg Palace where we learned a lot of interesting history about the Hapsburgs and Franz Josef’s Hungarian wife “Sissy.”

Our second night in Vienna we happened onto a trio of musicians from Russia – again performing in the street – two balalaikas and a button accordion. A balalaika is a 3 stringed instrument – the one used (I think) to play Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago. The sound cavity is sort of triangular shaped and the strings are plucked, not bowed. One of the balalaikas was small and high pitched, the other was very large and low. The larger one stood on a peg, sort of like a string bass, and was played standing up. The button accordion was like a normal accordion but had buttons instead of piano-ish looking keys. All that to set the stage for this --- they were incredible musicians!!!! They were playing classical music – Eine Kleine Nacht Musik and the like. Their technique and ensemble were impeccable and they were soooo much fun to watch. Have you every seen anyone do a vibrato on an accordion? Dad says Myron Floren used to do it on Lawrence Welk, but I was too young to remember that. Anyway, vibrato on an accordion is a function of the whole upper body. The whole performance was a real treat. I bought a CD and it’s good, but watching them was even better.

The Crakow Trio

The other highlight of our time in Vienna was the opera. L and L had bought tickets for all of us on-line back in May ($US75 per person). I am not a big fan of opera, but seeing one in Vienna seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I was certainly not disappointed. The opera was “Manon Lescaut” by Puccini. It was in Italian – as almost all opera is - but we each had a little LCD screen attached to the seat in front of us that displayed the lines as they were spoken – either in English or in German. We had nose-bleed seats in the FIFTH balcony – no air-conditioning – I would not want to be there in July - but just seeing the opera house “in action” was a real treat – it made some of the things I learned in music history in college come alive.

Vienna Opera House

Balconies

Several things about the whole experience were interesting: (1) apparently, in the interest of making an old work of art speak more clearly to modern minds, there is a growing trend among opera houses to “modernizing” the set and the props – cars instead of carriages and modern looking storefronts, etc. The lines and the music all stay the same, but the visual effects are “updated” -- an interesting idea which, at least in this case, was done very effectively, (2) the acoustics of the opera house itself were incredible – a full orchestra in the pit (5 string basses!) producing a big full sound but somehow the solo voices stilled soared above it WITHOUT being electronically amplified and (3) the technical ability of the orchestra was phenomenal – no squawky oboes or botched horn solos at all. Period.

After Vienna, Mike and I and Dad and Curt left Loren and Lynette in Garmish for a few days and went back home to discharge various duties and enjoy a little R & R in Heidelberg. Having written about Garmish before, I will skip on to our next and last excursion simply noting that L and L got themselves back to Heidelberg via the train – proof once again that they are NOT candidates for assisted living.

Our last Risch family excursion included Koln (Cologne), Burg Eltz and Trier (the last 2 being subjects of a previous travelogue). The reason for going to Koln (there should be an umlaut over the “o” in Koln but compuserve doesn’t allow that) is the cathedral there. Dad and L and L had been there before. All that Dad and Loren could seem to remember was that there was a McDonalds across the street. Lynette just knew that she wanted to go back. I am tempted to think that all three of them must have been inebriated when they were there before – how else could they SEE the Koln Cathedral and not remember it. However one of them is a tee-totaler so that explanation will not work. Perhaps a better one would be that American minds can tend to get overstimulated in Europe and when that happens things all start to run together – plus that previous visit was almost 20 years ago. Given the right state of mind, a day in Koln is not just an ABC day – “Another Bloody Cathedral.” We all agreed at the end of our visit that being in the Koln Cathedral was a vivid reminder of the finiteness of man and his insignificance in the presence of an almighty God. By contrast after our visit to Melk Abbey (and the chapel there) we all noted that everything there seemed very pagan. And in Vienna we all agreed that St Stephen’s Cathedral was too dark on the inside and badly in need of a face lift on the outside

The Koln Cathedral is extremely tall and extremely Gothic – a true Swiss Cheese church as my dad would say.

On the inside it is more plain and light than many European cathedrals. The stain glass was particularly beautiful. Of the cathedrals we’ve seen so far it is my favorite.

The Koln Cathederal

One theological note before I leave Koln: obviously there are lots of problems with the way Catholicism has been practiced in Europe over the past 2000 years, but they did do some things right. I’ve verbalized my thoughts on church steeples before. I also like the fact that churches in European cities are very visible. They are often on the highest spot in town and they are usually visible from quite a distance – sort of symbolizing that God is above everything else and more important than everything else. In Koln, you could almost drive into town without a map and find your way to the cathedral. It dominates the skyline. The “Twin Towers” of Europe are churches not office buildings or trade centers. It’s just unfortunate that that is a reflection of the past and not of the current European mindset.

One last tourist note and then on to family news. After our afternoon in Koln, we headed toward Burg Eltz, looking for a place to spend the night along the way. The tourist season was about over so we had the luxury of seeing what we might “happen unto” instead of making lodging reservations. We “happened unto” the Hotel Traube in the little village of Lof on the Mosel River. Lof was a delightful little town and we had nice rooms with a view of the Mosel and an absolutely scrumptious meal in the hotel restaurant – a European back door that even Rick Steve’s has not yet discovered. Such are the things that one misses on a big impersonal tour of European – though in this case there was actually one tour bus in town.

Our relatives having now returned to Colorado and all three of our kids now being in Washington state, we have an empty nest. But . . . . we think we have another batch of company arrived in a couple of weeks. Do any of you need to make reservations?

We now own a “new” van --– that doesn’t fit with having an empty nest I know, but . . . . . oh well. Mike and I aren’t known for being logical. We have been stewing all summer over what exactly our second vehicle should be. We finally decided that it had to be newer than our Dodge Caravan which has 170,000 miles on it. It needed to be big enough to haul company around in and also big enough for Mike and me to sleep in when we sightsee alone. We decided that that sounded a whole lot like another van. Mike is totally averse to buying a brand new vehicle, so once we figured out what we were looking for, we took the first reasonably priced, 2-3 year old van that showed up on the post lemon lot – which turned out to be a Honda Odyssey. Mike would LOVE to buy a German Audi – instead he got a Honda Ody. Unfortunately Audi’s are expensive and in order to ship one back to the US when we leave we would have to pay a minimum of $2000 to get it to meet US specs. By the way, Germans DO produce and drive vans – some of them bigger than our minivans. American vans are not as out of place in Germany as some would like you to believe. The one thing that Germans do NOT produce or drive is pick-up trucks.

On to family news. Deanna is back in Tacoma Washington for her senior year. She is living with some friends from our church there – Steve and Amy Kliewer. They raised 4 wonderful girls of their own and have been gracious enough to take on another one. Things seem to be working out at their house and Deanna is really glad to be back at Covenant High School. There are always surprises when you return to some place that you’ve lived before, but one of the more pleasant ones for Deanna was discovering that her favorite teacher, Mr. Bond, is teaching senior English. Mr. Bond is a demanding teaching and one of the “rewards” of being a senior at Covenant used to be NOT having Mr. Bond as a teacher – those were the good ole days – or so Deanna’s friends are probably saying.

Amy should be back in Tacoma also – at least by the time I hit the send button on this message. She is enrolled at TCC for the fall quarter, hoping to transfer to WWU in Bellingham after Christmas. She is still planning to live at the Parkinson’s but I’ve heard that Jim has a job with the IRS in Idaho and they might be moving????? Hello Ana???? Are you still with me???? This is a “secret” message for you.

Amy spent several weeks between the end of her job in the Catskills and the beginning of school in Washington helping with Hurricane Katrina victims. She started out in Knoxville, Tennessee where they were preparing for the arrival of 600 hurricane victims – many of whom never arrived (read “FEMA truly was messed up”). Somehow she ended up delivering a bunch of supplies to Sliddell, LA and working there for several days shoveling muck out of houses – “it was a lot of fun”. Then on to Lawton to spend a couple of days with Laura and Josh Carlson while she had the clutch replaced in her car and visited her Grandma Strohm in the assisted living center. Then on to Grandpa Risch’s in Estes Park and finally to Tacoma Washington in time for the first day of class. Her little green Nissan Sentra (that used to be Mike’s) has now been all the way around the US twice (it started out life in Montana and then moved with its owner to Ft. Benning, GA).

Alan has survived his first “project release” at Google and still likes his job – also his church. A couple of weeks ago he joined a Precept class (that he found on-line) that is doing Hebrews. That should provide us enough theological meat to keep Deustche Telecom in business for the duration of our assignment here. Actually it’s only 1.9 cents a minute for us to call back to the States. The challenge is to find a time when we are awake and the kid we want to talk to is too.

I am back to a schedule again –- that is, I have one scheduled event in life -– teaching my Bible study at PWOC on Thursday morning. We are doing the “Prophets of the OT” this time: Samuel, Elijah, Hosea, etc, etc. Unfortunately, mine is the only Bible study offered with any serious biblical content. While I was “all over the map,” an unexpectedly large group of ladies decided they wanted to take my study. (Hummm seems like there’s a lesson here about offering content vs fluff.) They only ordered 10 books and the PWOC president decided she couldn’t allow more than 10 to sign up without my permission. All my ladies from the last study dilly-dallied around about signing up and then couldn’t get in. The fall-out from that hasn’t totally settled. Meanwhile I am enjoying teaching the OT to a totally new group of ladies.

One of my busier friends/readers has informed me that I needn’t apologize for my long travelogues. So I will refrain from doing that though it looks like I’m starting my 7^th page which seems particularly egregious. Perhaps the moral is that 3 weeks of travel is way too much for one travelogue

The future: Mike and I are thinking about Amsterdam over Columbus weekend. Hopefully, I will have two friends from Tacoma (Rinnie and Jennifer) to chauffeur around for several weeks after that. I plan to be in Tacoma for the week of Thanksgiving and the week before (ETS week at the seminary – Prof Glessner are you still with me?). Mike will also be in Tacoma for Thanksgiving. After that . . . . who knows.

Nancy