I’m lucky enough that I get to go back to Germany once a year to visit friends and family. Today’s trip was to Schmidmühlen to visit my Oma (grandmother). Schmidmühlen is a small village about 90km southeast of Nürnberg, it’s celebrating it’s 1000 year anniversary this year. This place hasn’t changed much over the years, I remember the Ludwig Sir building from when I was a kid…it looked just like it does in these photos. Sadly this may be the last year it will be left standing, the town is thinking of tearing it down to make room for something new…I guess everything must change at some point.
Photos below: Ludwig Sir old sign and the cross on top of the chapel at cemetery just before sunset.
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Rainald Grebe sings “Brandenburg”, 2005.
Today I am feeling a whole lot better thanks to the persistent use of some medicine I picked up the other day called Mucosolvan. This stuff had really helped clear out my throat and sinuses so hopefully I should be 100% for my trip to Munich this weekend.
In preparation for Munich and my last week in Germany I made a run the local Weimar laundry matt to do a couple loads. While I have not mentioned the laundry mat on my tumblr before I think now is a perfect time to share what it is like. Having never been to such a place before I came to Weimar I didn’t really know what to expect when I found out that I would have to use on. It really has been an experience. First off it is on the other side of town so I always have to either ride my bike with my laundry bag strapped over my shoulder or catch a ride on the bus looking a little awkward. I always have to make sure I have enough coinage for the washer (3.50 Euros a load) and dryers (50 Euros for 15 minutes) since there is no change machine in the matt. On my first trip to the matt I expected to be able to break down some of my cash there and since I couldn’t and I was desperate I resorted to begging several nearby shop keepers in very poor German to let me exchange some money with them. Anyway, even though it is not very convenient it has been an interesting facet of my life here in East Germany. I actually do manage to get a lot of reading done while waiting for my loads and I am proud to say that I really do like having had this opportunity.
TUNE KILLA on Flickr.
We were walking out of the show and Coco was a little disappointed. She thought everybody was too happy. Sean and I tried to tell her that just because the jams are in major keys and upbeat doesn’t mean it’s happy music. It’s hard to hear her lyrics sometimes but she’s singing about bad body image and violence a lot of the time. We said that, on the whole, GGD is way more “positive” and “affirmative” despite some of their darker tones. Maybe they’re better, maybe they’re not; they’re just different things with different modes; one is assuredly brighter. Probably because this lady lives in California and those GGD folks live in Manhattan. I really think that’s part of it. Oakland’s no utopia but it certainly has better light than Manhattan, and it’s more open, though obviously more violent these days. One of the weirder things about Oakland in the last few years is just how deserted a lot of it feels. There are pockets of cash—of people with cash that is—but just drive around and you’ll see a lot of empty streets. There are hardly any empty streets in Manhattan, duh, and the light bounces in weird ways there that makes it almost lose its power by the time it finds a cement canyon’s base beneath your feet. It’s almost like the air stops the wavelengths. I think this is a big deal. I think this is why I won’t live in New York again. I need to see the clarity of the sun or I need it to fight clouds; I don’t want to feel it wearied off of walls. I sound like an idiot, I know, but this is all very real to me. Part of the reason I enjoy Berlin as I do is because, though the weather has been weird and the light doesn’t match California’s, there is air here. And the pace is more akin to Oakland, maybe even Portland, than Brooklyn or Manhattan (or Milan for that matter). There’s people around almost everywhere all the time (not Oakland-like) but nobody’s in a rush or worried if you walk in front of their car. And the canal is a great place to read and to talk to strangers if you want to read or talk to strangers. This may be a summer time thing but it’s certainly some kind of thing I needed, and need.
Artist Oekkes Yildirim decorated 16 lime trees with a total of 208 guitars in Dusseldorf, western Germany. He plans on selling the instruments when the art project ends on June 19, and donating the benefits to support the city’s kindergardens.
Tim: insert data face