Car nuts

Christian is a secret car enthusiast. He drives a BMW like in one of those commercials for BMWs that get driven like maniacs through twisty European city streets laden with pedestrians and bikes. You know the ones. They make those commercials for a reason. Or maybe people drive that way because of the ads. It's hard to say which came first. Anyway, he drove us to the car spot in Frankfurt in the manner described above. If I didn't characterize it as harrowing I would be lying. No weddings were interrupted or carts upended but lanes were cut and birds were flipped. We drove past something being filmed so if you see yours truly looking terrified out the rear window of an X series Beamer in an upcoming feature film, you'll know why and how. Anyway, here are some pics from that afternoon at the Klassikstadt:

We had a very nice lunch on their terrace. A got to eat Matjes herring and I got Gruene Sosse which is a local sauce made with herbs that grow in the region: parsley, chives, chervil, borage, sorrel, garden cress, and salad burnet. People argue about the correct way to prepare this dish, so if you ever make it, do NOT put it through the blender if you are going for authenticity. 

I know this because Christian's mom had invited us for coffee and home made kuchen and we stopped at her beautiful house after the cars. She was not impressed with the description of my order. Even though I enjoyed it, I have a hunch I missed out on the real thing. The dessert she made was an amazing roll with whipped cream and a sponge like cake. Afterwards she served these cheese cookies spiced with caraway seeds and washed down with white wine and some Japanese whiskey. 

Out of order

This blog is so out of order in a variety of ways. I feel I have let you down this trip. For being so lax, I apologize. As I mentioned earlier, I've been preoccupied. With our "election" and its aftermath. And then Brexit, its lead up and then the vote which was happening when we were en route to Frankfurt and then we woke up the next day to the results. It's been strange to be ostensibly on vacation. It's like having one eye on the passing landscapes and the other glued to a news source. It's disconcerting yet unavoidable. You just cannot look away. But look away, I did, at times, mostly for you, and I thank you for that because you helped me to enjoy being here. 

I'm going to post some more pics of Frankfurt that won't do the city justice. And my running monologue will add to the muddle, but I hope the combination of images and my drivel will cancel out any banality and you will get a little glimpse of the secret side of this finance capital city.

Christian drove us maniacally through the streets of town to the botanical garden. This place is a wonder. It has plants representing all parts of the world and even recreates most of the environs in which they thrive. Here we are entering one of the traditional greenhouses. 

It was like a jungle in there. 

Those stepping stones were very hard to navigate because they gave the illusion of floating on the surface of the water and even sure footed N could not get over the effect.

A grotto with fish for some inexplicable reason. But it was nice and cool in there. Probably the coolest spot in the botanical garden. This was the hottest day of our trip, maybe 90 degrees F. 

Look closely. A heron can be seen fishing, just like on Putah Creek.

A little creek alongside a meadow was just under the shadow of a ridge highlighting sages and other drought tolerant stuff. They have micro climates in spades here.

And for the weary plant enthusiast the park thoughtfully provides the means to take a well earned rest. I didn't get them in the pic, but we were in good company that included several sun worshippers and even a badly disguised peeping tom. A and N slept through the drama while I kept vigilant watch. We had barely sat up when a group inquired as to whether our lounges were available. This spot is popular.

Oh, see those cubist things in the background? We headed there next.

They are huge and go on forever with every conceivable climate and flora you can imagine and then some more. It was so hot that day that sometimes the tropics inside were cooler than the air outside. 

We eventually left the park and headed to "Saxenhousen" across the river to meet up with Christian for dinner. This is just a random pic of a street on the way. 

And here are some architectural details.

Whirlwind Frankfurt

Well, I am so behind on this blog. I've been taking photos as much as I can but whenever I have wifi, I am glued to the news I'm afraid. Every day something over the top happens. First it was watching our "election" and all of the aftermath and fallout and inevitable manipulation of the "news".Then there was the lead up to the brexit. When we got the results for that we had just gotten to Frankfurt and were deluged with A's friend Christian's German perspective. He has a degree in American politics and is rabidly up to date on everything from both sides of the Atlantic. Strangely enough while staying with him I lost my access to wifi because he was between service providers. This was both good and bad. Bad because I felt completely in the dark and good for exactly the same reason. I was finally getting some sleep too because I couldn't obsess on what is happening during the lead up to the July DNC convention...

It's very weird being here because these events don't just concern us. Europeans are very interested in our "election" too. And the brexit has created turmoil all over the EU. It's interesting to hear and see things wile in the middle of it and simultaneously feeling completely removed from it. 

BTW, our train to Frankfurt was over an hour late. We sat on a car with zero airconditioning in record breaking heat. Ironically that train line is called, "Ice". Later we found out these formerly publicly owned rail systems are now, since 2010, privately held companies and the change in quality of service corresponds directly to the change in ownership. 

Anyway, I will continue to update the blog soon. I might have more to say about Frankfurt but it's almost midnight and I'm a bit tired. So here is a pic of our sweaty, delayed arrival. Luckily Christian met us on the platform as we stumbled down that walkway and he whisked us off in his very fast BMW to a nice dinner at his place just outside of town.

Munich day trip

Due to an overwhelming number of requests for the opportunity to spot cars, we took a second trip to the place that a certain car spotter worships. Yes we went back to that same intersection that somehow yielded more nuggets than London's hallowed Sloane Street. This would be maxillianstrasse, the spelling of which I am probable butchering badly. Anyways, we struck a compromise: museums first, then cars. Below you see the main entrance to one of Munich's four main art museums, the modern one.

It had a great collection of Max Beckmann, who A and I both love. He was labeled a degenerate artist of course, and lived in exile for many years. He taught in the US at one point and when I was in school, we used to quote something he was supposed to have said often to his students when encouraging their pallet choices: "bleck! Bleck! More bleck!"

I didn't take any photos of his work but if you click here you can read a little about him and check some images out:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Beckmann

I also got to see a Paula Modersohn-Becker but apparently I walked too closely to a sculpture and was chastised by a guard so we left shortly after. But not before stopping for a snack at the cafe:

This was a square we walked through to get to the beer garden. So crowded everywhere. People walking, riding bikes, driving like maniacs. It was quite chaotic. We went through this gate and walked along a park and ended up at the car spotting corner eventually, where N stationed himself for maximum car spottage and we sat at a cafe and intermittently watched a very dramatic soccer game.

Here's the strategic corner:

And here is the entrance to the huge beer garden. We stuffed ourselves with food I cannot even begin to identify here for a variety of reasons, but I will blame it on my linguistic limitations.

Frankfurt

This was the train ride I wrote about earlier but when I took this picture we had jus left Augsburg and had no idea what we were in for.

This is not Frankfurt yet. Just a picturesque town on the way there.

Ingolstadt, home of Audi

Mo offered to take us to Ingolstadt with him to see the Audi museum. Also that's where Nadine lives and works. So he picked us up first thing on Tuesday and we drove through the country. Here are some pics from that ride:

Ingolstadt is not that far from Augsburg and is dominated by the auto manufacturer. The parts of town we saw lacked any of the charms of Augsburg but we didn't see very much of it, just the part that counts:

I found out the 4 connected circles in the Audi logo represent the four companies that joined forces to create what we know today as Audi. Also the main manufacturer was named Horch and I believe "Audi" is the Latin translation of this German name and means "listening".

These conveyor belts are very popular in German museums. We saw another one highlighting furniture in a design exhibit at the contemporary art museum in Munich. This display is much bigger, immaculate and completely silent as it goes around.

The two following pics are of N's favorite cars.

This is my favorite. Kind of looks like a mobile land fish.

This was spotted outside on the lot where wealthy people who own Audis can park. They also can drive into an adjacent garage for repairs with a very space age door that looks like some thing out of Star Trek.

We headed back after meeting Nadine and some of her coworkers just to say hi at the architecture firm. Mo made a special stop at the Audi test track on the way back. What appears to be a lake is actually black top that has been freshly watered down to replicate difficult driving conditions so brakes and general handling can be discerned. Unfortunately they were done for the day so we didn't get to see any "drifting".

This is the edge of the parking lot of that place. I kept seeing red poppies wherever we drove but wasn't quick enough to snap a pic so took advantage of this situation to juxtapose our different subjects of interest.

The way back.

And back in Augsburg, a 1950s mural close to our place.

Right now, two days later than the trip mentioned above, we are sitting on a train to Frankfurt to visit A's college friend Christian, the friend we stayed with a decade ago. Before we left Davis, I read an article in the nyt that said the public transit infrastructure in Germany was endangered and needed updating. And I quote: "if you want the precision of the German train system, go to Switzerland." I thought the nyt article was an exaggeration but I've been able to write this entire blog post because of a train blocking ours, a broken signal and other various deficiencies. In fact it's so insufferably hot on this train it's starting to smell like a Limburger factory.

UPDATE: we are going to miss our connection to Frankfurt because of a signal and switch problem. Everyone on here, and this train is packed, is very pissed off. You won't be reading this until after the fact unless I can find some wifi. 

I guess I won't take every nyt article with a pound of salt again!