Germany Ain't What It Used To Be ... On the road again ...

So we have resumed our traveling.  Only, we're not exactly heading West ...

As I write this, I am sitting in Frankfurt, Germany.   I flew here today - well, I left Oregon yesterday, and flew all night to get here and landed at about 11:30 in the morning.  This is the beginning of hopefully an adventurous journey, not quite around the world but ... pretty far away to an unusual place.   More on that later ...

The grand Central Train Station in Frankfurt

 

 

I flew here by myself.  Actually, well, y'know, the plane was full of people, but I was alone.  My lovely wife Fiona is already here (not actually here, but in Senegal, West Africa) and she will join me here in Germany tomorrow.  We are going to continue on to somewhere else, but we'll get to that eventually.

I was able to enjoy a Special Event while flying from Portland overnight, and "over the pole" or close to it.  In other words, when you fly from the Pacific Northwest to Europe you don't go across the US and pass, like New York, and fly across the Atlantic. 

No, Oh-no-ho-ho - you go way North, up across Canada and up and over the Arctic, more or less.  So the flight crossed over remote upper Canada and Greenland and passed by Iceland and flew over Scotland and landed in Northern Europe.  I know all this because I am an experienced traveler (full disclosure - I regularly checked the flight progress on the airplane screen!). 

Did you ever realize that everywhere on Earth is south of the North Pole?  Bet you never thought about that, eh?  If you are standing on the North Pole exact spot (which has always been a source of debate) then you own the North-est spot on Earth.  

Okay, ...hey man, get to the point ... so what was the special event that I "enjoyed while flying from Portland overnight"?  

So this time of year the sun stays up late in the Northern Hemisphere, y'know, "the land of the midnight sun," etc. - and I was traveling across the extreme Northern Hemisphere, and I was able to track the sun going down as we flew along.  

It was a spectacular sunset, although poorly captured by a photo out the plane window. 

 

And guess what?  In about 45 minutes, the sun came up again!  HA HA HA! - bet that was a short night for someone (me?).  I have always been fascinated with the time zones and sunset and sunrise and daylight savings time.  Never could quite wrap my mind around the clock gymnastics ... is it just me?

And while we're at it, what's up with that 24 hour clock stuff?  What time is 21:32?  Have to stop and think about it for a minute. 

Anyway, I was able to capture a second picture, I got the before-and-after.  It seemed pretty special to me.  You could see Greenland down there, only it didn't look very green (epic fail on naming a country!) it looked really cold, even in the height of summer. 

 

 

So why is Germany not like it used to be?

For one - there is a very wide range of ethnicity here, a tremendous cultural mix of people.  Germany has become a very racially diverse nation. You see cultures from all over.  It didn't used to be like this.  There was a terribly unpleasant fellow here at one time who tried to "purify" the nation.  

Which brings up another point.  ... how do I say this? ... Germany has an un-glorious past. There are some atrocities that will never go away.  You can wash your hands as many times as you want, and some stuff you can never wash off.  

Germany has made a conscious decision to let refugees in and diversify - an admirable choice in today's world.  

But in many other ways, times have changed.  After years of peace and prosperity, there is a level of violence here that has not been seen for decades.  For starters, there are a lot more guns here than there used to be.  For a long time, Europeans didn't typically own guns. 

Fiona and I travel a lot, and there are certain realities you have to face.  But in the last week, Germany has suffered through three terrible tragedies, with serious bloodshed.  Kind of makes you think twice before you get on the plane.  But of course ... ahem ... America has its own problems with violence. 

Anyway, to see Germany these days is to see a different country than it was many years ago.  Heck, when I was growing up, it was even called West Germany (there was East Germany too.  It has now grown to be the largest and most prominent country in Europe. 

In some ways, it looks sort of like it used to.  But sometimes it can be deceiving.  The picture below shows a traditional square in Frankfurt, but it was actually rebuilt to resemble this style of architecture after the place got bombed during World War II.

 

I went for a walk along the river this evening, with beautiful views of the River Main (pronounced Mine) that flows through the city center.   It was a lovely evening, warm and clear.  

 

And I even had a chance to stop for a nice pint of that good German beer.  Hey, that's one thing that hasn't changed ...

Off to a nice start!