Walking through history
Friday, May 23, 2014
Rostock, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Germany
Friday. May 23After not sleeping I am awake at 4:40 with light from the sun! I do not know when I will get to post anything on this blog, so I decide at 6 am to write in my notes so I can just copy and paste if we have Internet. We are to arrive in Warnemunde, Germany. We have a tour with Friends of Dave, called Straddling the Wall. This refers to the wall in Germany that separated the east and west people. This tour was arranged by a lady from Texas that we joined. There is a walking tour of this beach town, a train ride, a tour of Rostock and lunch. I can not remember the other details. But I am writing this now so I will not have to repeat as much when/if I get some wifi time. We plan to bring the Princess breakfast from the buffet to save time and energy! Isn't that special! Too tired to walk back to town after the tour to post so I will continue to add comments to be sent whenever. The tour was by Andreas who lived his early life behind the WALL. It is truly a story to hear about the ways they were taught in school to disregard as unimportant religion and capitalism. He always was opened minded, so he was labeled in school. He was not allowed to choose any profession that allowed him to leave the country. His family could only travel to the block of countries that were like minded. His father was a seafarer so he would bring them things. Once he had a pair of jeans with rivets. He was forbidden by the school to wear them because the rivets represented capitalism. He was required to do service to the country. He choose a social service. By then the wall had fallen. He managed to become a nanny in the states even though he did not know any English. This tour was walking and boy did we walk. Ed broke his pedometer a few days ago so I do not know how far. Andreas highly recommends the movie "the Life of Others" since it is a good representation of how it was to live in eastern Germany. The east and west were and still are quite separate in there thinking it seems. We also walked to a beautiful beach. The chairs in the beach were like property. You staked it out from year to year and place a marker on it in for territory. There was 'modern' hotel that gave rooms free to foreign persons, diplomats, etc. They were bugged, with a building across the street that housed the listening rooms. They have restored the area near the beach which was quite nice. We stopped at a cafe near the beach for coffee, tea, and cake. We forgot to take a picture of the cakes set at each table but we had two large pieces of four different kinds of cake at each table for four. They were very tasty. The coffee is strong here! The town of Warnemunde is now popular but once was only a fishing village. We took a train to a larger city, Rostock. The train was new and quiet. Then we hopped a tram. We visited the old town mostly but there was little time to see much. We ate at Hoppeenkeller's. This was in a cellar with brick arches. There were interesting artifacts there too. The meals was very generous. There was sausage with sauerkraut or pork schnitzel (spell check does not speak German) with mushroom or egg on top and the best potatoes! The potatoes tasted like Ed's mothers home fries. We got Pepsi in a bottle! They ONLY way you get soft drinks is in the tiny bottles. Water was provided, which we had heard does not happen. After eating myself sick and they brought out a small softserve ice on a dish. We head out again. We visited St Mary's church. Most of the churches are Lutheren. They do not prize ornamentation. The floors again were grave stones and the wood carvings are magnificent. The 5002 pipe organ was used to start a service so we got to hear a song on that. The church was not heavily damaged in the war. The stained glass windows were removed and stored. The storage place was bombed. Some panels have returned to the church. Things are just old here. Twelfth century and new but so different, amazing. We heard so much we just could not take it all in. We took a tram and train back. I was so happy to see the ship again. The show was nothing special so we ate more and rested.
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2025-02-17
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dwlp.travelkids
2014-05-30
You are learning so much as you make this trip. What a blessing.