Dana's soccer tournament

So as some you know, I made a small side trip to visit my nephew Dana, who choose to particpate in an international soccer tournament in a NiederSachson, Dassel, Germany!

The day dawned bright and beautiful. i was picked up at 9:30 by Jan, Dana's host brother, host sister Liza and host mom Susanna. It was a great day, sunshine all day and the team played well (so said Matt, Wally and Paul - the coaches :)

Here are some pictures of the day.
(Please note all these photos will probably have Dana featured as I was under strict orders from my sister to photograph him especially and if you want to make the photo bigger simply click on it.)
The German organization of the tournament really went all out, foosball tables, target shot cutouts, trophies and a giant inflatable castle and man!!
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The boys first all had to line up. There were six teams and they all stood at attention for the German and American National Anthems.


The boys getting ready for the tournament


All the boys receiving their trophies and of course their dinner!!



Although long the day was wonderful and they came in sixth I really thought the boys did a great job. I mean they were the number #1 American team at the tournament (so I heard one boy say) Even at the end of the day when they were so hot and sweaty they stood still and listened to at least ten minutes German speaking with very little noise and/or movement!! Wooo hooo :) They can be taught...but only at an early age, maybe :) Great job Wally, Matt and Paul.

Well, that should be enough to get everyone started talking about their trip! I will post of our trip to the Volkswagon plant and the Wolvsburg Stadium tomorrow.

Ratskellar (no, not rats in the cellar, but the town hall brewery!)

This is us in a private booth where persons who had no other privacy could make trade agreements with secrecy. However in order to close the doors on either side of the table you must be more than three persons, so that one may act as a witness for any neferious deeds. This is still the law today.

Our tour of Bremen began with a trip through their 600 year old Ratskellar or wine cellar and is located directly beneath city hall or Rathaus. I must warn you reader that I enjoyed this tour immensely and consequently this entry is extremely detailed... We started off with the restaurant portion, which is filled to the brim with tables, but also four giant barrels of wine, covered in decoration. Each barrel had a different theme, lions, monkeys, dolphins and dragons, but the artists had never seen any of these things so they all looked remarkably similar, still gorgeous. There is no longer wine in any of the barrels as it would leak out due to the barrels age, but to just imagine them full...wow.

We then toured the back of the restaurant or where in “former times (my favorite German saying)” the wine bottling would take place. This Ratskellar would obtain wine from all over the region and it would all arrive in barrels. This (what seems to me) small operation would then bottle and label everything by hand. As we walked along there were many reminders of the superstitions people had regarding the prosperity of grapes for the year. As you can see we have Father Rhine (Father Rhine, the river married Mother Mosel, the region of grapes) and also Bacchus or Dionysus watching over all aspects of production.



The tour guide took a deep breath after our tour of the former bottling section and invited us past huge wooden doors that used to be the opening doors of the wine cellar saying it was a special place. Directly after the doors was a deep tunnel awash with little floor lights flickering. As the tunnel widened and I waited for my eyes to adjust I noted the pervasive smell of wine filling the air. I finally saw what so special for about 500 feet all you could see in the gloom was wine barrels. At the end of the tunnel was a blue light and a large ornately decorated cell. This was the Treasure Room where they keep all the most precious bottles of wine. Even the staff are not allowed to open it without the Master of Wine present. There is a bottle of wine in there from the 1700s (a small bottle of wine) that is 1,500 Euros to purchase. It was gorgeous and right in front of this spectacular site they opened a lovely bottle of sekts for us (which to all of us is German champagne for lack of a better word). Hey it was only 10 ‘o clock, but it was a gift, right, so you can’t say no...hmmm.

As we headed back to the front with the restaurant I thought the tour was over and began to thank our guide for an entertaining visit when she stopped and adopted a somber expression. She said, “as you enter here, feel free to not speak and simply enjoy the atmosphere.” She unlocked a gate inset in the wall that I had walked right past not noticing. Inside it was completely dark with only candles set every 4 feet at about shoulder level. Each candle sat on top of a barrel of wine and now I had to rethink my idea of smell of wine. This room was old, far older than the treasure room. The air felt heavy with wine, like you could cut it. I imagine if you stayed down there long enough you would be light headed very soon. As the tour guide spoke about the barrels of wine in the Apostle Room (which is what they called the cellar). There were 12 barrels of wine and each had an apostle’s name engraved on the front. Only one barrel had ever been tapped and that is the 1,500 bottle that I mentioned earlier. That barrel is named Judas. I know...amazing isn’t it? The next room had three barrels of wine in it (the Rose Cellar) and we shared another bottle of wine with accompanying chocolate. One of the barrels in this room was from 4 years after the 30 years war. There is no way to know if the grapes survived that war to be barreled, but it was an interesting thought that this was a survivor of that tumultuous time. It was incredible. I must say that this Ratskellar has their work cut out for them because they are an official UNESCO world heritage site, so they are not able to update their operation at all. All the old wine that they have they cannot tap due to this designation, but being a world heritage site is relatively new so perhaps it will all work out in the end. I must say that I was suitably impressed and very happy to recommend this tour to many others. I realize our tour was more in depth than probably a layman’s tour, but still it would be worth it :)


After our tour we sampled a little lunch and then met back at the statue of Roland (the city of Bremen’s national symbol) with our guide Eva for the tour of the city of Bremen. We heard the story of the animals that were let go from their farms because of old age, blindness and who found each other on the way to Bremen and made their own home together. We all touched the statue for good luck :) We explored the centuries old Rathouse or town hall and toured the Schnoor Strasse, where we found the smallest hotel, one room that they call the wedding suite (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). We visited the cathedral of Bremen that was just gorgeous with such decorations that I thought it was all made of marble. Those artisans were clever and simply painted wood to resemble marble (tricky). We also met the oldest church mouse in existence. Can you find him in the picture? The artisans thought it would protect the church from rats to have a mouse within the architecture.

Our last day in Bremen finished with a wonderful meal at the Ratskellar with Michael our coord for Bremen and Herr Pfieffer the Bremen Rotary president. A great meal, good company and good night’s sleep was all that one could ask for our last full day together.

Hamburg or Hamburger?

Today was Hamburg day!

We all piled in the car between 8 -9 am and promptly fell asleep. Hamburg is only a short ways when you sleep for most of the trip :)

We arrived and began to look for our first stop Miniature Wonderland. Mike Muchmore from District 7250 back home had recommended it highly as a great tourist attraction. As we pulled up there were so many kids on school trips that I thought this can’t be right, but it turned out that they were all going to the Hamburg Dungeon, a nearby attraction. Although there were children at the Wonderland, there were many more adults than I thought there would be. The attraction displayed America, Austria, Scandinavia and many German cities. As you can see from the pictures everything was in miniature, but with so much detail you couldn’t help but be fascinated. Each time you looked closely somewhere else another thing caught your eye. They even had an outdoor rock concert of DJ Bobo (very popular here in Germany) with porta-potties and everything. I enjoyed it, thank you Mike for the recommendation!

We ended up having lunch on the water at Ponton. The restaurant was neat because you must walk down the side of the canal like Venice to get to it and all the building just came up from the water with no sidewalk or anything. Very neat and the weather held together nicely as well. After our luncheon there was time for shopping, which I must say we all appreciated :). Then back to Bremen for dinner at the Rotary Club President’s house in Bremen Nord.

Herr Pieffer’s house was something out of a fairy tale, with marble floors and a giant bubble light fixture for a ceiling. The garden was something I had only seen in pictures. The house was built atop a hill overlooking a river and there was a small path that wound its way down the hill with archways filled with roses, red, white and pink...so beautiful. Gisela and Richard von Busse arrived from Oldenburg and I was so glad to see their smiling faces. It felt like we were finishing the trip well, beginning and ending with them. Thank you so much for making the trip down to see us, Richard and Gisela. And thank you Bremen for a wonderful tour of Hamburg.

Today was vocational day in Bremen. The Bremen Theater every summer has one opera on a floating stage in an unused harbor of Bremen and I was given the opportunity to view the last rehearsal before dress rehearsal. This year the opera was AIDA (woohoo)!!

Some of the problems with outdoor theater are microphones, weather, moving stage, seating and perhaps motion sickness. I was curious to see how a theater in Germany might handle this. I realize what some of the solutions might be, but I was still curious.

As you can see from the pictures, the stage, on the bottom was a sort of ship that had several anchors to some pilings in the ocean floor. There was some rocking, but it seemed controlled for the most part. The body mikes worked very well even for the always difficult to capture high floaty and high loud sections with the soprano. Unfortunately the tenor was marking so there wasn’t a very good gauge.

The stage “set” was made up of about 20 blocks that were painted a neutral cream color. The soldiers/extras on stage moved the boxes appropriately to fit the scene. So at the end (SPOILER ALERT!) when Aida and Radames are entombed to die they were surrounded by these blocks on three sides and then the guards stepped in front to simulate an enclosed area. It was perfect! The singing was gorgeous and I loved the whole idea of persons enjoying a night at the opera on the water. I am going to see the Bregenz Festival AIDA as well and can’t wait to see the differences :)

I also got a chance to visit the Waterfront, which is a failed space center in Bremen turned shopping mall. While a very nice mall, I though the idea of a space center was even cooler. From the air that is what the shopping center looks like with rocket boosters and everything. Very cool!!