It Kinda Depends On Your Point of View ...

We're home now, I wanted to do a post basically focused on just pictures.  

I love photography, and have spent a fair amount of time gathering pictures for this blog, among other things.  All pictures published here were taken by me, using an iPhone camera.  I have occasionally resorted grabbing a photo off the internet for the blog, but 99% of pictures were generated on my own, with occasional help from Fiona.  

Much of the time, I am capturing an image in order to explain a point of view.  Literally, like what the scenic view was like in a foreign land.  But sometimes, I just want to capture an aesthetic image for the sake of a unique or unusual moment in time. 

The pictures on this post would fit that description. Pictures just for the sake of a picture, too interesting to pass up.

This little rig was cool looking and dazzling, but puzzling.  We came upon it on a cobblestone street in Rothenburg.  Turns out it is actually a bicycle.  Looks hard to maneuver.  By the way, everyone rides bikes there, which can be challenging on the up-and-down cobblestones.  

This was some leaded ancient glass in a church in Bacarach Germany.  Loved the texture of the glass and the colors behind.  

  
Again, colors and texture.  We saw a lot of apples, especially in Kazakhstan, where they are said to originate.  Although ... this picture was taken in Germany. 

This was a classic expression on a large statue carving on the front of a church.  There were other characters in the artwork, but this guy's mood seems to imply he's fed up and bored ...

Stark colors and textures. Street scene on a low window ledge in St Goar.  

Loved the light and the detail in this picture inside a church in the chancel area.  Doesn't look very comfortable.  Most of the churches in Germany are Lutheran.  

Again, just because ... I loved the lighting and lines and texture.   

  
So many people (tourists?) in various forms of modern clothing, amongst a background 1,000 years old. 

Having lunch at an outside cafe, with this view across the street.  Found the variety of elements very interesting.  

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Inside yet another church, but hey, gotta love the bright basic colors.  Not bad for a bunch of Lutherans, eh?

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Loved the detailed carving.  Was trying to capture the close up view against the blurry background, depth of field.

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Guess you can tell where this picture was taken.  Candles against the enormous background of the church in Rothenburg.  For the curious: O.D.T. is a geographic reference and translates as "On The Tauber" the local river nearby. 

The Small Things Make the Best (Funny) Stories -

 

Sometimes it's the little things that make a lasting impact ... 

A Funny Story

So on our trip up the river (see below) we found a nice courtyard cafe in a six-hundred-year-old building to enjoy a very nice lunch. On this particular day, I chose to order a big bratwurst, or German sausage, which is a staple in the local diet.   It was terrific, along with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. Pretty dadgum German if you ask me.

But when the time came to pay the bill, they only took cash! Yikes! We were rather short, assuming we could pay with plastic. I asked if there was an ATM machine nearby, and they instructed me to go up the block and I would find one. So I did, while Fiona waited at the table.

Only problem was that it was actually in a bank, and the door was locked. It was one of those electronic doors that usually open when you approach. I waved at the overhead sensor, but nothing.  I looked around, and there were no other ATM’s in sight. This was a small town. What to do?

Another couple came up and tried to get in, and had the same result. But the woman pulled out her European card and stuck it into a slot and the door opened - and I followed them in. 

They tried to get some money out of the machine, but it wouldn’t cooperate with them. They became more and more irritated and then started to get angry with each other, they were speaking Italian (I can speak Spanish, and understood most of what they were saying).  At one point, the guy gesticulated wildly and shouted “MAMA MIA!”

The arguing escalated, and they accused each other of not know how to operate the machine. They kept taking turns and it didn’t work for either one of them.  Keep in mind, it’s been some time now and Fiona is still waiting at the cafe and I’m still waiting my turn at the ATM.  The couple starts getting pretty mad and flailing their arms in an Italian show of emotion. They accuse each other of being idiots- “You are an IDIOT!” - “No, YOU are an Idiot!”

Eventually they threw up their hands and began to walk out, thoroughly fed up and pissed off. They were poking their fingers into each others chest accusingly - "It's Your Fault! You are so Stupid!" A whole bunch of grief and no money. 

So I step up to the machine (finally!) and prepare for my turn, and the machine says “Please take your Cash!” I look down and there is a bunch of money the machine has just spit out. I call out to the Italians, “Hey, hold on, look at this!”

They turn around just as they are about to leave the small office, and they are amazed. Their money is there!  Deliverance!  They are vindicated! Salvation is at hand! It’s a Holy miracle! Their cash is there after all, and who knows how it showed up? They are also incredibly grateful to me that I pointed it out to them.

“Thank you Thank You,"  they tell me  "Bless you! Grazie! Grazie! Holy Mother of God!” they kept saying.  I don’t know, were they thankful I didn’t take the money?  It was almost like they gave me credit for making the money appear!  Anyway, they continued to celebrate their good luck and shower blessings on me and my descendants!

As mad and disgusted as they were just moments ago, they were now ... joyful and triumphant! It was pretty funny. They were saying things to me like “May the blessed Virgin Mary smile upon you until eternity! May you go forth and multiply!” 

I was like, hey man, no big deal, it was your money. It was the least I could do.

They eventually left, laughing and dancing and slapping high-fives, and waving the money in the air!  Hilarious!

I got my money in a much less eventful manner, and after a very ... long ... time, walked back into the cafe, where Fiona had been waiting patiently ... forever. When she saw me she started laughing. I’m not sure why.  I guess it seemed funny, and she is familiar enough with me to know there is probably a story attached to this.

This is undoubtedly the most exciting trip to the ATM machine I have ever had.

It helps to know what you’re looking at. 

How did these castles get here?  Why are there so many?

We had traveled outside of Frankfurt via train and boat to the small town of Bacarach, on the Rhein river. It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine and 80 degrees. The boat ride was fun, with eye-popping views of castles on either side of the Rhein.  You couldn't go a mile without seeing another one. 

We climbed a couple of steep hills, high up the river bank to visit the castles, and it was a lot of work.  We worked up a sweat. 


 
The hills are severe and the castles are located in difficult places on purpose, so to provide a better defense against “the enemy”. 

I have described earlier, the methods used in the old days to secure a "fiefdom". There were a lot of wealthy landowners and noblemen in those days and they fought a lot and tried to conquer their neighbor, or seize territory, or invade another country.  And you better have some good fortifications around your own place. History is full on conflict.

The Rhein, (in English it's spelled Rhine) has always been an important river in Europe, and was a channel of commerce and trade. And the castles that lined the river made every effort to extract tariffs, taxes, tolls (or whatever you want to call it), before they would allow freight to pass by. 

Obviously the shipping companies took exception to this. Battles ensued, and this hampered the movement of goods between regions. Once these trade barriers went away, prosperity was enjoyed by many. 


Germany became a united country under Prince Wilhelm and Otto von Bismarck, and the importance of castles diminished. Another contributing factor was the previously mentioned development of gun powder and cannons and rifles and other modern weaponry. 

But the castles remain, and many are quite spectacular to visit. They are in various stages of repair or decay, and it can take a lot of time, effort, and money to maintain them. Tourism helps. And there can be a lot of tourists. 

In fact, Fiona and I first went to St Goar, a historic town with one of the best examples of a once-glorious castle. But there were so many tourists that we had to flee - in this case, to Bacarach (shown above), a quieter and much more mellow town further up the river. We went by boat, which is a common way to get around, along with trains that travel on both sides of the river. 

And then we had lunch in a courtyard cafe ...

Hey, We Weren't Born Yesterday - Well, Yes America ... You Were

 

History goes back a long ways.   Our travels continue in Europe - Germany to be more precise - Historic Rothenburg

Travel gets in your blood.  Seeing unusual things far away can be very enriching.  You can never get enough, or at least we can't.

So after we finished our trip to Kazakhstan, we had engineered a brief spell in Germany into the return trip home.  Sort of a readjustment.  That's where we found ourselves the last couple days. 

Upon our return, we rented a car at the airport in Frankfurt and headed out of town - jet lagged and all.  Driving in Germany was a culture shock, there was no transition from Kazakhstan.  We were immediately on the Autobahn, with insane Germans driving at speeds of 100 MPH, I kid you not.

After poking around on bad roads in the outback of K-stan, we were thrust back into the modern world, and these Germans have to be some of the most aggressive and extreme drivers in the world.  

There is a reason that the speedometers of Mercedes and BMW's show numbers up to 200 Kilometers per hour - because they expect to drive at those speeds.  It's crazy.  If you're going a mere 80 miles per hour, you will get run off the road.  

Rothenburg - One of a Kind

This was a destination that we had marked on our calendar.  A medieval town preserved at it's best ...

This trip has really been noteworthy in terms of historical perspective.  We have seen a lot of ancient stuff, going back a thousand years or more. Kazakhstan has a very old history, and so does Germany.  

These historical sites and buildings date from the middle ages, or years with only three digits, like 800 AD.   As Americans, we don't have that kind of perspective of life.  Everything in our country is relatively new.  

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The views in Rothenburg are stunning, and I took a lot of pictures.  Too many really to post in a blog. So I will just hit a few highlights....

We started out the day on a long walk, this time outside the city walls, around the countryside.  It is very lush and green here, with gentle rolling hills.

Imagine our surprise when coming around a corner and finding a huge production stage going up in the middle of the woods.  What? They're gonna have a concert here?  Turns out there is not only a concert that night, but a music festival in the next week.

I asked a guy working if it was gonna be rock music, and he said "A bit of everything ... except classical."

Some of the views were amazing.  It's an old city, the kind where they had a wall around it to keep out invaders and enemies.  They made a darn good wall that will stand for a long time.  You can walk around the inside.

There is an evening tour by a "night watchman" who leads a walking tour around different sights and tells stories.  We found out this guy is like a rock star, a big time celebrity.

We thought there might be like twenty history aficionados show up, but no - there were like two hundred.  They guy was good and very entertaining. 

With my business oriented mind, I started doing the math.  If two hundred people pay eight Euros apiece, and he has two tours a night (English and German) this guy is raking in big money.  As much as $2,000 a night during peak tourist season! Good for him. 

These citizens of Rothenburg know they have a good thing, and they do a great job preserving the quaint and scenic attributes.  Fiona described it as "terminally cute!"

Our Hotel went back five hundred years.

And other buildings were intriguing to look at and admire the style in which they were built.   This building below looks like something out of the Hobbit.

And this street view below shows the towers in the town.  There were many towers, where guards could shoot arrows down on invaders to keep the town safe, or pour boiling oil down on their heads.  

Of course that was in the old days.  Eventually mankind invented rifles and cannons.  Towers are no defense against cannons. 
  

One last point of time perspective.  On our long walk through the countryside, we came across this little church.  They used to bury people in the churchyard.  One of the gravestones said "Here lies Hans, he died in 1537."  

So America, we have a long way to go in terms of history.  It's not about comparing countries, and a nation can't help it if it's young.  Hopefully we can learn from the past.  But it helps to know that with all that goes on, the human race is pretty resilient.  

Up Means Down, North Means South, Do You Have Any Vodka?

Of course, you knew apples are from Kazakhstan, right?

 

 

A few anecdotes to share about Kazakhstan

As we have now departed from Kazakhstan, I wanted to reflect on a few amusing and interesting odds and ends (mostly odd).

The place is a paradox, new and modern mixed with ancient and historic.  Efficient and hard work interwoven with indifference and poor service.  

Here is an example:  We took overnight train trips to-and-from the remote outback of western K-stan. 
On the first trip we were delighted to find a healthy and pleasant breakfast.  

The next trip ... not so pleasant.  We went down to the dining car in the morning after sleeping all night on the train anticipating a repeat of the nice meal on the previous trip.  

We found the crew still asleep for the most part and not terribly helpful.  We were told to go sit down and we would be taken care of.  We asked for some eggs and coffee and maybe some toast with butter and jam.

After about twenty minutes of no response, they wandered back in and told us they had no eggs. "Do you want to come and order off the menu?" they said.  I was surprised they had a menu, this is a train with minimal services. 

So I went and looked at the menu and tried to discern something useful.  All I could see was one thing.  When I went back to sit down, Fiona asked if I ordered some breakfast.  My response: "All they had on the menu was Vodka!"

We eventually got some bread.  And it took about twenty minutes for a cup of coffee.  Hey it's just instant coffee, how long can it take to dump some powder in a cup and boil the kettle?

And when we finished our meager ration of bread they came up and asked us - "you ...  bread ... butter?"  meaning, "do you guys want some butter?"  Ummm, a little late ...

They have a long way to go in the realm of customer service. 

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Almaty is filled with wonderful parks and trees

 

One of the more ironic (moronic?) things we found was that up was down in Almaty, the biggest city. And North was South.  This makes it very difficult to find your way around and figure out where things are.

Let me explain.  The maps they use are based on the terrain.  Which means that the city layout - north to south - is based on the slope of the ground.  Readers of this blog may recall that there are some serious mountains to the south, so the city is a downhill slope to the north.  Without getting too complicated, they refer things as uphill (south), to downhill (north).

So when you want to look at a map, the higher elevations (south) are at the top of the map, and therefore ... the north is at the bottom.  

Only when you use Google maps or other "modern" devices, well, North is where it's supposed to be - everything looks backward.  It is seriously confusing.  It took a lot of work to not get lost.  I was scratching my head the whole time ...

If this sounds baffling, trust me, it was.

 
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And one final major impact on the culture of K-stan was the Russian influence from 1840 to 1991, when they achieved independence.  

In that time, they were heavily "colonized" by first the Czars of Russia, and then the Soviets.  For a long time, Kazakhstan and the other "stans" and many other countries, were controlled as part of the USSR - remember those days?  

 

They were part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.   Once they achieve sovereignty, that influence was woven into their DNA.  It's changing now, but it is still part of their everyday life in some ways. 

Most Kazaks speak Russian.  They use the often incomprehensible Russian alphabet, even when they speak Kazak.  And they drink a lot of Vodka. It will take a generation or two before this influence is washed out of their culture.  

So that's today's history and geography lesson.  But one that is essential to the Kazak people.  

 
Kazakstan is an emerging nation, one with a lot of natural resources (especially oil) that will provide for wealth and a growing middle class.  In the meantime, it's a country in transition ... and a surprising, often puzzling, but fascinating place to visit. 

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A couple more brief anecdotes:  We were walking around one of the excavation sites in Turkistan and we saw some guys supervising the workers.  The supervisors not doing any work of course, and were pretty fat, and were pretty bossy.  

Our guide stated: "The bigger the belly, the bigger the boss!"  Kinda like the USA or anywhere else in the world?  I'm just sayin'  ...

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And we were wandering around in a small town looking for some abandoned ruins, and we couldn't get a gate unlocked, even with the right key.  We asked a middle aged guy riding by on a bike if he could help us open the gate.  Obviously, as a local he knew how to work the faulty lock.

He looked at me and Fiona and asked our guide if we were Russian.  
"No," she said "they are American"  
"Like American-American or Russian-American?" whatever that means.  Only he said it with a heavy accent like Ameri-conski?
"Like real Americans"  she told him.
He stared at us.  "They look Rooski (that's how he described Russians)"  He pointed at me: "He looks more Rooski than I do"  
Hunh?  Wait?  What?  Me?  Never been called that before ...

We SO Did Not Expect This in Kazakhstan

Everyone has expectations when they are going somewhere new, but sometimes they get blown out of the water

Kazakhstan was unknown to us before we came here, and pretty much to everyone else.  It is not a place that would register on anyone's radar.  So when we got here we were surprised when we found this place is full of ... surprises.

The first few days were spent in and around the largest city Almaty (pronounced All-Moddy).  And then we went to the outback where it was hot and dry and remote and amazing.  

Last night, after our return from the hinterlands, we made our way - on the gleaming new subway - to the top of a nearby hill via cable car to a location that overlooks the city.  But we did not expect to find a vibrant and crowded amusement park.  It was also amazing.  

This picture above was taken overlooking the city, on one of those giant slingshot thrill ride things that shoots you up into the sky.  The picture turned out magical I thought.  Check out the image on the camera phone.

By the way, the new subway system here has the largest escalator in the known world.  We were rather astounded when we got to our final stop to see the escalator rise up from the underground rail - it was at least ten stories high, it was unreal!  It went on forever.  Pictures don't do justice to the distance covered by this mechanism.  Check out the riders halfway up. 

There were tons of people up there at the top, it was big amusement park, like anywhere else in the world, which was something we did not expect.  Especially after being out in the boonies where things are rough and there is ancient history around every corner.   

And what was even more interesting was that there seems to be a prosperous middle class.  These folks are well dressed with good haircuts.  They were spending money left and right.  They almost seemed to be affluent.  

We captured a moment at the viewpoint with the city of Almaty in the background as the sun dropped over the horizon.

 

Up to the Mountain Top we go! 

We had planned on going up into the surrounding mountains, looking forward to forest and rivers and nature, and today was the day for that.  And again we were completley stunned by what we encountered.   

We made our way up from the city by bus about 25 kilometers into the mountains.  It doesn't take long to get up high and soon we were at a large world-class skating rink with a backdrop of spectacular snow capped peaks. 

And there was a new modern cable car system that efficiently shuttles passengers for Six Kilometers into the mountains.  The views were so impressive that you would have thought you were high in the Swiss Alps or the Colorado Rockies. 

And once you get to the top, there is a new modern ski resort "village".  Apparently this is one of best in Central Asia.  People come from all over to ski here.  We did not expect this. 

And then there was yet another chair lift kind of thing to shuttle you up even farther, to an altitude of almost 10,000 feet, with incredible views - not only of the mountains, but the valley floor below.  It was an elaborate well planned system of gondolas and lifts designed and run by the Kazaks.  Again, very impressive.   

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I have to be honest here, full disclosure, I was a little nervous on this whole excursion, once we left the ground.  Certainly not because of the operation, it was top notch.  It was because of my "apprehension" about heights.  I get real uneasy being up high off the ground, and this whole day was a challenge.  We were way up super high on the cable cars and chair lift - way out of my comfort zone.  I guess I'm just wired that way.    

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But we never imagined that Kazakhstan would have something this sophisticated.  This is a well functioning country with a temendous potential. The same people who built the sandstone monuments in the desert that have lasted for a thousand years are the ones building these well engineered modern mechanisms that can tame mountains. 

Wednesday is our last day here in Kazakhstan.  We have really enjoyed the time here.  The people are friendly and we have felt completely comfortable and safe the whole time.  They seem to be well educated, productive, clean, and peaceful. 

This big city of Almaty is filled with wonderful big parks and trees.  And of course, as confirmation that the modern world has reached K-stan, they have a Starbucks! 

 

How Many Ways Can You Get Around in Kazakstan? Anybody Got a Camel?

In the last 24 hours we've been really active, traveling across a wide stretch of Kazakhstan

We traveled on foot, by car, and by overnight train.

I thought I would show a bunch of pictures in this blog post, because they can tell the story well.  

We started out yesterday in Turkistan, the place with the crummy hotel, and set off across what they call the "steppe".  This is the vast grassland that makes up much of K-stan.  I'm gonna use that abbreviation because it's hard to keep typing out Kazakhstan. 

It is pretty dry here.  They have water problems, as in - not enough.   But the hot and dry climate has been a tremendous aid in preserving the historical and ancient ruins that dot the landscape.

As we traveled by car for a couple hundred miles, we passed a lot of scenery, including a whole bunch of camels, just kind of walking down the road.

Then we came to the ancient village of Otrar.  It is very remote, but was once a part of the Silk Road where goods traveled from east to west.  They mostly used ... you guessed it - camels - to travel back and forth.

There were some amazing buildings, and the area was described in one sense as a ghost town, but people still live and work around there.  I would describe it as a remote village that contains a lot of historic ruins.  There are a lot of such villages and towns in that region. 

One of the more amazing things was a giant mound that looked like a hill.  It was previously in ancient times a full-on town with a palace and other structures.  Then Genghis Khan showed up and conquered the place ... and killed everyone.  

He was generally a pretty fair player but for some reason he was really pissed at these guys.  Our guide told us the story.  

They are restoring the place basically by digging away all the dirt to reveal the buildings.  

There are a ton of archaeologists here involved in active research and uncovering the past.  Seems like the whole country is full of sites.  You can't stick a shovel in the ground here without finding another historical treasure or something of cultural significance. 

We spent a lot of time in the car on the way, and our driver stopped a couple times to encourage us to sample the local produce.  They are big on melons here, and they were delicious.  Fiona captured me with a big smile on my face eating watermelon on the side of the road.  It was a nice break on a hot dry day. 

We pressed on to the city of Shymkent (pronounced Shim Kent) where there were even more ruins.  I won't keeping bombarding readers with more ancient ruin pictures, but the landscape was interesting, and we began to encounter more mountains.  

This scene shows a special feature of K-stan - Apple Trees.  This country is known as the origin of apples, and they grow everywhere, with a vast variety, many we've never seen before.  And all kinds of other tree fruits: Plums, Pears, Apricots, Peaches, Pomegranates, plus Walnuts and Pistachios and a bunch of other stuff. 

At night we made our way to the train station in Shymkent to take the all night train back to Almaty. It was another decent sleeper car and we arrived back in the city in the morning.  On the way we were able to see the majestic mountains that surround the city. 

When you walk out of the train station, there is a statue of a soldier standing in the sun with the mountains behind him.  Couldn't resist the picture. 

After checking into the hotel, we went for a walk around the city.  We hit some of the local colorful street markets and eventually hit the central park that houses the massive Church of Saint Nicholas. It was nice to see a church, there are more mosques here in K-stan, although they are not known as a particularly religious society.  The mosques are mostly empty.

This is a Russian Orthodox church.  This being a former Soviet Union country, there is a lot of Russian influence here (I want to expand on that in another blog post).  Of course, the Orthodox church uses a lot of iconography in their worship.  The interior of this place was eye-popping.

We're back in Almaty for a couple days.  We are planning to take a trip outside the city tomorrow up into the mountains for some hiking.  It will be nice to be up in the trees and lakes.