Blog by jo

Triberg im Schwarzwald – home of the cuckoo clock

Like many of you, I have pondered the origin of the cuckoo clock. So I am pleased to be able to tell you that, if you travel to the Black Forest in southwestern Germany, there are more than a few townsfolk eager to take credit for its invention and sell you any kind of cuckoo-ing clock you like.

Last Saturday (23 Feb), Mikey and I decided to spend the day in the Schwarzwald (or Black Forest), a wooden mountain range in Baden-Württemberg. It was a beautiful day, a balmy 14°C. After purchasing a few too many pretzels for breakfast, we drove 75km west from Tubingen to Alpirsbach, where we stopped for coffee. Alpirsbach was pretty quiet, so we drove another 9km to Schiltach. Schiltach is said to be one of the prettiest towns in the Black Forest and it lived up to its reputation.

After a quiet stroll through the charming town, which is crisscrossed by the Kinzig and Schiltach rivers, we headed 33km South to the bustling town of Triberg for lunch – home of the cuckoo clock and pretty proud of it. There were plenty of shops displaying their wares, including all sorts of clocks and all manner of items that could in some way fit a replica or pictorial clock.

To be honest, I am not really a fan of the cuckoo clock. In my old age, I find them a bit noisy and busy looking. However, one could not ignore the incredible design of some of these clocks and the superb craftsmanship they display.

What really caught our eye in Triberg was the waterfall just on the edge of the town. The crisp air, moss covered rocks and rushing water took us a world away from the bright and noisy town of the clocks.

Unfortunately some of the paths were icy, so we only walked around the base of the waterfall.

There are many walking trails through the Black Forest, so Mikey was able to pick up some snazzy walking shoes from a local hiking store (Mikey’s a big fan of practical souvenirs). We then decided that it wouldn’t be right to leave without trying the specialty of the Black Forest – Black Forest cake. It was worth the hype – and I’m still trying to work out how they got the liqueur in the sponge of the cake while maintaining its sponge-ness…

After Triberg, we drove to Furtzwagen to see the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum (German Clock Museum). The museum showed clocks throughout history, beginning with the sun dial, and had some very impressive exhibits on display. Not surprisingly, Mikey found the mechanics of some of the older clocks very interesting.

Apparently, the ‘cuckoo’ clock was named by local clockmakers after the sounds coming from the Black Forest.

After touring the museum, we called it a day and drove the 124 scenic kms back to Tubingen.

Obviously most visitors don’t get a tour of Google’s Zurich office, but Mikey and I were lucky enough to have someone on the inside. The google office is, of course, a serious place of business…at least as serious as an office can get that also manages to look like a theme park. While there are normal looking workstations and typical style conference rooms, the office also features what I’ve dubbed ‘novelty’ conference rooms that take the shape of diving bells, igloos…and a Swiss caravan…???

The caravan conference room complete with phone.

Each floor also features a type of leisure area – like a games room, massage room or gym…but the water lounge (complete with tanks of goldfish and electronic massage chairs) and the library (straight from the days of Jane Austen) are somewhat ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas.

I really love the ‘book’ wallpaper and the fake fire flickering on the tv screen

And given the fact that taking the stairs or the elevator is soooo last year, each floor has its own fireman’s pole to ensure getting downstairs is as efficient as possible (although I wouldn’t recommend doing it with a laptop in your hand). And to extend this concept even further, employees can enter the cafeteria via a slippery slope from the floor above, although I don’t think arriving with grace is guaranteed.

So visiting the google office was fun – and I haven’t even detailed the abundance of food or the excellent coffee machines. While it looks like it would be extremely difficult to get any work done while surrounded by such distractions, I am sure it has exactly the opposite effect. Humans are funny beings – when given a bit of rope we feel the love and put our noses to the grind stone. When we’re overly managed, we can achieve great feats in procrastination. Or is it just me???

Anyway, Saturday night we headed out for cocktails and beer at some local bars before heading to a lovely Swiss restaurant. We had cheese fondue and risotto for tea…apparently cheese fondue is ‘very Swiss’. While the fondue was very tasty, it was also an awful lot of cheese…and I had the feeling afterwards that I might not be eating much cheese for a while.

Mikey and Leanne having cheese fondue

After dinner, we took some photos of Zurich at night. While the photos cannot convene how incredibly cold it was, I think you can see how stunning Zurich is when blanketed by night.

On Sunday, we took the train to the top of Uetliberg (873 m), a mountain in the Swiss plateau that offers panoramic views of the city of Zurich and Lake Zurich. Unfortunately, due to the fog, we could only glimpse the Swiss Alps but the view of Zurich was exceptional.

After grabbing some late lunch, we went back to our friends’ place to pack up and head back to Tubingen after a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.(Many thanks Dennis and Leanne!)

It was surreal to hop in the car and drive to another country for the weekend – which is what we did last Friday (15 Feb) when we drove 192km (just over two hours) to Zurich, Switzerland, to spend the weekend with friends.

Driving to Zurich required an encounter with the famous German Autobahn. The Autobahn is a major Federal highway where no speed limit is enforced. Vehicles must be able to travel at a minimum speed of 60km/h, although I would recommend traveling at a minimum of 100km/h if you don’t want to feel as though you are about to get creamed. I’m not sure I have ever seen your typical run-of-the-mill car travel so fast. We were routinely overtaken by suburban vehicles doing 160km/h, and when a Porsche or two passed at about 200km/h I was confronted with a whole new perspective of our speed.

I can’t say I enjoyed being on the Autobahn, even though I was only a passenger. There were a lot of cars overtaking each other all the time, plus it was dark and I continued to feel everyone was on the wrong side of the road. Although perhaps the vision of being totaled by an SUV doing 200km/h was what contributed to my discomfort. I must say, I really felt for the guy driving the smart car. I suspect an Autobahn is a lot more fun when you drive a sports car.

Crossing the border into Switzerland was an anti-climax, with no one in the least bit interested in checking our snazzy microchipped passports. On the other hand, at least we didn’t get delayed. And once again, Sean (the GPS) did a fantastic job of providing the best directions to get us to our destination.

On Saturday, we caught the very clean and punctual tram into the centre of Zurich to have a look around. We walked down the main street to the lake, wandered around the old town and enjoyed the views of Zurich from the park and the church tower.

Zurich is a beautiful city, featuring a sparkling lake and stunning architecture with a backdrop of the Swiss Alps (although they were hard to see through the fog). I was impressed by the care taken to maintain the buildings, with the countless window shutters looking like they had just received a fresh coat of paint. The streets looked immaculate, with not a gum wrapper or plastic bag to be seen. And like many European cities, the intricate detail on the lamp posts and railings added a touch of elegance and history to our surroundings.

One of the main streets in Zurich

View across the lake

Streets in the old part of town

View of Zurich from the church tower

I was walking along the street the other day and I noticed a sandwich board with a big picture of Marilyn Monroe on it. On the building next to the sandwich board was a flyer – in English – promoting a seminar to discuss the politics of Malcolm X. I was perplexed. As I gazed to the heavens I saw, hung above the door of the building, the sign “d.a.i.” I was filled with intrigue, but alas it was closed. So I dashed home eagerly to find out what I had discovered via my trusty laptop, danger.

<end flowery rhetoric>

It turns out that the d.a.i. is the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut (German-American Institute) Tübingen and is a forum for German-American culture exchange. They discuss social, cultural, political, and economical conditions in both countries through seminars and information sessions, as well as offering language courses and assisting in the logistics of arranging a student exchange to the U.S.A.

What was of great interest to me was their little library, chock full of English texts – from crime fiction to sociology reference books, newspapers to DVDs.

So last week I became a card carrying member at the bargain basement price of €9 for 12 months. It felt almost as prestigious as joining the D.A.R. (gilmore girls reference, for the benefit of…um…Mikey…and Di and Brad?)

Last Tuesday night, Mikey and I went to Neckarmüller for tea. The Neckar is the main river than runs through Tübingen and Neckarmüller is a German pub on the edge of the river. There website is pretty cool, with plenty of pictures and a copy of the menu – but I’m not so sure about their choice of theme music…

The pub is two storeys, with huge windows so you have a great view over the river from most of the tables. You can sit in cosy booths, at counters on stools or at tables. We sat at a table near the railing and looked onto two very large brass vats located in the centre of the pub. I’m not sure what their purpose is, but they look pretty cool.

Tübingen is in the state of Baden-Württemberg, which is the third largest of Germany’s sixteen states and has Stuttgart as its capital. This region is also referred to as Swabia and has its own cultural nuances. Two of the specialty dishes from this region are: Maultaschen, pasta filled with various ingredients such as meat and onion and served with broth or cut into slices; and Spätzle, a kind of noodle.

I ordered the Gemüse-Maultaschen vegetarisch gefüllt (left), which was much like ravioli filled with vegetables in a rich Gorgonzola sauce. Mikey had the Tübinger Käs ́Spätzle (right), which – when served on its own – is covered in cheese and topped with caramelised onion. It has some resemblance to macaroni and cheese, but the cheese has a stronger flavour. Spätzle is also commonly served without cheese as a side to meat instead of fries (or pommes frites as we like to call them here).

Some blurry photos of the Neckarmüller and Neckar river at night are here.

My blog does not seem to be keeping pace with our activities, or indeed our photo page.

On Sunday 10 February (the morning after the ‘birthday game’), Mikey and I arranged to go for a hike with one of our flatmates and her boyfriend. We drove to Gammertingen, which is about 42km south of Tubingen, and walked from Gammertingen up to a lookout called “The Devil’s gate”. As you can imagine, we were expecting to come across something that looked vaguely like a gate (ie a rock formation). Strangely, nothing we could see remotely resembled a gate but we did get a good view of the valley.

View from The Devil’s gate

We met some hikers at the lookout who had been to Australia and, although they couldn’t speak to us in English, passed on their congratulations for Australia’s success in the motorcycle racing. Casey Stoner, and his impressive victory in the 2007 MotorGP, is probably a lot more well known over here!

Given the hike to the lookout was not very long, and the weather was good (about 8°C), we decided to walk another 5km to the next town, Hettingen. On the way, we came across something that we suspect might be ‘The Devil’s gate’…but I would have thought there would be a plaque of some sort so I can’t be sure….

When we got to Hettingen it was absolutely deserted, but we were lucky to find a local pub that was open so Mikey and I could try some local specialties, which for Mikey was a venison dish while I had a pork schnitzel.

We intended to take the bus back to Gammertingen from Hettingen (everything ends with “ingen” around here), but didn’t want to wait an hour for the next one. So we walked back to Gammertingen (about 6km) and got back to the car just before it got too dark.

Thanks to the ABC, Mikey and I could come back to the apartment and relax after our long walk by watching the first Insiders podcasts for 2008. Even in Germany we are still following Australian politics! Pretty tragic.

With all the traveling we have been doing, Mikey and I decided to spend last weekend in Tubingen. On Saturday night, we went to a birthday party for one of Mikey’s colleagues from work. It seemed strange that everyone who arrived had brought an item wrapped in newspaper and placed it in an ever growing pile in the corner of the room. Later in the evening, when the host was presented with his birthday present, I expected something to be done with these items wrapped in newspaper. However, the pile of items remained untouched until eventually the host gathered them all up and placed them in the centre of the room. These items were for the traditional birthday game!

To play the game, everyone sat in a circle around the wrapped items and a dice was passed around the circle. Each person rolled the dice and, if a six was rolled, selected an item from the centre of the circle. It turns out that these ‘wrapped items’ were not cool party presents, but were often useless, weird or horribly ugly items that the owner was trying to get rid of. The dice was passed around the circle until everyone had rolled a six and unwrapped a ‘present’, usually with an explanation from the original owner of how they came to own such a splendid piece of crap. Then another dice was added to the mix and , for a limited time, if you rolled a double you could swap your present with someone else for something smaller or less ghastly. When the time was up, you had to go home with the item you were left with.

The game was a lot of fun, particularly for me as I rolled a six very early and selected a small present …which was revealed to be a pair of yellow wrist sweat bands with a picture of a smart car on them. Not so bad…especially compared to the scary toothy goblin statue. When the second dice was introduced, I rolled a double and swapped with the host, who was eager to unload his large butterfly wall hanging thing. While my intention was to donate it to my new flatmates (very nice of me), I rolled another double and was perhaps a little mean in returning the butterfly monstrosity to the formerly-appreciative birthday boy over his rather vocal objections. It’s fair to say that a good laugh was had by all.

For those of you at a loss on how to entertain your guests, it’s definitely a game worth a try.

UPDATE:

An expert in the field of the birthday game has advised that – those in the know – refer to it as a “Gräulichparty”. The “Gräulich” is the useless thing that you bring to the party, and the one I got to take home is displayed below.

While Mikey has been at the office, I have had the opportunity to wander around by myself. Initially it seemed that most people did not speak English, which was a little difficult for me as I don’t know much German. However, I’m beginning to strike more people who speak English and getting by with the tiniest bit of Deutsche that I know. I have been cursing my decision to learn Spanish at school instead of German, but am making the best of it by just smiling like crazy.

I’ve been walking around Tubingen, and an hour seems like five minutes. What I never expected to see was so many authentic Italian restaurants. To be honest, it was a bit of a relief for me to discover this because I can read an Italian menu far better than a German one…and every now and then it is nice to place an order and receive the meal you expected. Mikey and I had a pizza at a cheap Italian restaurant last Thursday and it was really good – very few toppings on a thin, fresh base. Not very German of us, you say? We made up for it by also ordering two large German beers.

Now I just need to find a strong long black coffee. It is easy to get a strong espresso, but alas the strong long black has so far eluded me. To be fair, I’m ordering coffee from a bakery so it is not exactly their specialty. Which reminds me…there are a LOT of bakeries around. A lot. And, much to my surprise, a Berliner is a jam donut…not one of those big buns full of cream.

There are also quite a few chinese restaurants around the place, although we haven’t ventured into any. I am hoping to find a local German pub which we can go to for an easy meal every now and then, so I’m trying to remember German words for food so I don’t embarrass Mikey by getting out the phrase book to decode the menu. I want to be sure I avoid anything with blood (blut) or liver (leber).

Cafe Lieb – This is my new ‘local’ cafe/bakery. It is nice to sit inside at the counter and watch what is happening out the window. Of course if you want to sit outside, they supply the blankets.

Mikey and I arrived in Frankfurt early on Wednesday morning (6 Feb) after a couple of long flights from Adelaide (via Singapore). Everything went as planned, flights were on time and luggage arrived in tact, and we even managed to catch a few hours sleep on the plane.

We caught the train from Frankfurt to Tubingen (via Stuttgart) and easily found our accommodation thanks to our trusty GPS, Sean. Within minutes we had our internet connection established and all was right with the world (according to Mikey at least).

We spent the afternoon walking around Tublingen, trying very hard to stay awake. Tubingen is a beautiful university town and walking around we couldn’t mistake the fact that we were in Europe.

Streets of Tubingen

We checked out the office where Mikey will be working during our stay in Germany and then, as our consciousness started to fade, we picked up some food for dinner from a small local supermarket. It is always fascinating to wander around a grocery store in another country. Does anyone eat these rice cakes that are covered in chocolate? How come German frozen pizzas are so authentically Italian?

I decided to ponder these questions after I got some sleep.

Mikey and I have done an exchange with a work colleague of Mikey’s from Tubingen, Germany. We are living in his house with his two housemates while he lives in our house in Canberra. We intend to stay in Tubingen for the next two months (Feb & March) before traveling around Europe in April. Then we head to Austin, Texas, where Mikey will be visiting on business. At the end of May 2008 we head home to Canberra.

UPDATE:

More info on Tubingen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCbingen