cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
On Tuesday, at oh-dark-very-damn-early I boarded a C-17 for a free ride to Spangdahlem Air Base. Nine hours staring at the replacement prop for a Herc, C-130. The next morning I took off, sans GPS, for Trier, oldest city in Germany. Got turned around and lost, ended up in Bittberg and while it wasn't Trier, it did have a stone arch proclaiming it to be "Bier Stadt," Beer City. Well, what have we here? I stayed and walked around in the rain. enjoyed the place, and then headed back to the base.
Day 3, still no GPS - fuckin' TomTom must be run by two guys and one worker bee- and this time I didn't get lost.
So now that your up to date; here's my account for Day 3:
"Put it where the sun don't shine," appears to be the regional motto of the Palatintnate/Eifel/Mosel/Saar Milch. Gray, slightly chilly, overcast day, but Trier was worth the effort to get there. And get there I did get in an amazing 45 minutes due largely to the fact that I didn't go through Bittberg first.
I'm a slow learner, I grant you, but learn I do/did/done/doing.
Of course, what is the worth of a pilgrimage if it doesn't include suffering, swearing, throwing of maps, gnashing of teeth and taking of oaths, all of which I did when the returning 45 minute trip turned into a 3.5 hour death match with logic, maps and the German road system.
God I miss my GPS and my faithful navigator.
I digress.
Old and grand, it's easy to see that this- Trier, not me- was an important city back in the day, and lucky me, I arrived on one of the days of Helig Rock, which I believe means Holy Rock. Hard to believe that the Germans wouldn't call it Helig Stein, but then I'm not a real German any more.
(word to fellow travelers, "Woh ist Ich?" is not German for, "Where am I?" But the old crone tending the bar in Schillerfragenmuchenbergenziestemhallen am No Fucking Where thought it was pretty funny. Gave me a map and told me to leave and not come back. I told her, "You can hate me now, but when the Frenchies come over the border again we'll stay home." She didn't seem to understand that.)
Sure were a lot of holy folk lining up to go through the enormous cathedral, wether to be rocked, stoned, euthanized, cauterized, circumcised, spayed, neutered or simply anointed, they stood in long lines and literally went in one door and out another.
I"m not sure I "get" religion.
Ah, order. Not enough is said for order these days as I listen to the rock/acid/heavy metal/progressive/sca/up-amped blue grass/motown/testesterone od'd band secured by the officer in charge of enlisted blow-off-steam-parties and "playing" just outside my window.
I'm praying (now I'm thinking I should have lined up to go through the cathedral as maybe this hell wouldn't be visited upon me) that this work of Satan will end with the entire band spontaneously combusting sometime in the next five -make that two- minutes.
Oh, no more than wished for than the post (sorry air force, but a base was a post long before you were born) Gestapo played Taps in the middle of the band's rendition of their mega hit, I Love You So Fucking Much I Just Want to Shit.
Why can't they dance like we did, what's wrong with Sammy Kaye? What's the matter with kids today?
Well what do you expect in a city that produced Karl Marx? (see photo)
I see I have really, really, digressed.
Trier.
It was neat. It was old. I had an incredible stuch of apricotish kuchen (I made that up, the name, not the kuchen) and a cup of coffee. I walked a good deal. I had fun and I scared the hell out of the Germans with my camera and Deutsch sprechen.
Good night,
Cincibuck the Red
Day 3, still no GPS - fuckin' TomTom must be run by two guys and one worker bee- and this time I didn't get lost.
So now that your up to date; here's my account for Day 3:
"Put it where the sun don't shine," appears to be the regional motto of the Palatintnate/Eifel/Mosel/Saar Milch. Gray, slightly chilly, overcast day, but Trier was worth the effort to get there. And get there I did get in an amazing 45 minutes due largely to the fact that I didn't go through Bittberg first.
I'm a slow learner, I grant you, but learn I do/did/done/doing.
Of course, what is the worth of a pilgrimage if it doesn't include suffering, swearing, throwing of maps, gnashing of teeth and taking of oaths, all of which I did when the returning 45 minute trip turned into a 3.5 hour death match with logic, maps and the German road system.
God I miss my GPS and my faithful navigator.
I digress.
Old and grand, it's easy to see that this- Trier, not me- was an important city back in the day, and lucky me, I arrived on one of the days of Helig Rock, which I believe means Holy Rock. Hard to believe that the Germans wouldn't call it Helig Stein, but then I'm not a real German any more.
(word to fellow travelers, "Woh ist Ich?" is not German for, "Where am I?" But the old crone tending the bar in Schillerfragenmuchenbergenziestemhallen am No Fucking Where thought it was pretty funny. Gave me a map and told me to leave and not come back. I told her, "You can hate me now, but when the Frenchies come over the border again we'll stay home." She didn't seem to understand that.)
Sure were a lot of holy folk lining up to go through the enormous cathedral, wether to be rocked, stoned, euthanized, cauterized, circumcised, spayed, neutered or simply anointed, they stood in long lines and literally went in one door and out another.
I"m not sure I "get" religion.
Ah, order. Not enough is said for order these days as I listen to the rock/acid/heavy metal/progressive/sca/up-amped blue grass/motown/testesterone od'd band secured by the officer in charge of enlisted blow-off-steam-parties and "playing" just outside my window.
I'm praying (now I'm thinking I should have lined up to go through the cathedral as maybe this hell wouldn't be visited upon me) that this work of Satan will end with the entire band spontaneously combusting sometime in the next five -make that two- minutes.
Oh, no more than wished for than the post (sorry air force, but a base was a post long before you were born) Gestapo played Taps in the middle of the band's rendition of their mega hit, I Love You So Fucking Much I Just Want to Shit.
Why can't they dance like we did, what's wrong with Sammy Kaye? What's the matter with kids today?
Well what do you expect in a city that produced Karl Marx? (see photo)
I see I have really, really, digressed.
Trier.
It was neat. It was old. I had an incredible stuch of apricotish kuchen (I made that up, the name, not the kuchen) and a cup of coffee. I walked a good deal. I had fun and I scared the hell out of the Germans with my camera and Deutsch sprechen.
Good night,
Cincibuck the Red
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