Friday, 21 May 2010

Woke up from a dead sleep to my alarm. Made myself decent and went down to breakfast where I found Dan on the computer. We got our plates and silverware and food, and went to town. I wasn’t actually that hungry for whatever reason, but I still had my customary broethcen with butter and a tiny bowl of cereal (a chocolate granola mix this time). Sarah didn’t make it down, but she doesn’t eat breakfast. Though she had jokingly told me the night before that she might drink the rest of her wine for breakfast. Which she didn’t, but still. We went upstairs to pack and Dan needed to shower.

After I packed up, Sarah came back from downstairs (for some computer time) and I was typing more blogs. She looked really hurried and I asked what’s wrong. She said her stomach felt really bad and then she rushed out of the room. You know, it’s been several years since I’ve listened to someone puking. Let’s just say she prayed to the porcelain god for a good few minutes. She came back (without washing her mouth out) and said, “Well, I don’t know what that’s about.” Uh-huh. Ok. Then she left again.

Then Dan came in and said, “There are people in my bathroom!”

“What?”

“I don’t know, there are people in my bathroom and I don’t know how they got in there.”

“Are you sure your bathroom isn’t connected?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t just want to go in there.”

So I went back with him to investigate. Sure enough, it sounded like there were three or four people in his bathroom. He said he’d locked his door and nothing seemed to be missing. I looked through the keyhole (all the doors in the hostel have those lovely old fashioned big keys and locks). I didn’t see any naked people (which was reassuring mostly because I detected the voices of boys and girls), but rather a door open on the other end.

“Dan your bathroom’s connected with another room. Look,” and I opened the door.

“Oh.”

I then told him to just use Sarah’s and my shower, since we wouldn’t be using it and the other people next door were already gone. Problem solved.

A bit before ten we carried all our luggage down to wait for Frau Brusis. We were supposed to go on a city tour of Villingen, then have lunch, then have our orientation, then go to a Clock Industry Museum, then have our Welcome Party and finally meet our host families.

She came a little late, and then had us stow our bags in a room at the hostel since she didn’t have the van with her, but her personal car instead. We did and were off to Villingen. She dropped us off at my museum, the FraziskanerMuseum, which doubles and the tourist information center. Here we were to meet our guide. Yup, not until she dropped us off did she mention that she wasn’t coming with us. I think she could have mentioned it sooner. Not that we needed her there, but it was rather unceremonious of her.

We were early, so we just looked around the foyer. Then an old women asked us if we were Americans and said we could start the tour early if we wanted. We did and off we went. Sadly, we only had an hour, which went by really fast. But I like tours. She spoke in German, but spoke slowly for us and had a cheat sheet she’d made up for herself for the difficult phrases. I’ll paraphrase what I learned:

Villingen is a pretty old town dating back to the Middle Ages…it was only possible back them to become a city, verses a village, when you were granted the privilege of minting money. The city still has most of its Old Wall and towers (there are three that we saw, each with a different color to signify a different landmark outside the city). The city’s ground water is also uncommonly close to the surface, so they have a lot of fountains (and no basements) and once upon a time, a mini-river flowing through the street, to help fight the occasional fire (when everything was made of wood). All of the buildings share walls because it’s warmer that way in the winter. Also to combat the cold, families lived on the second floor and stored all their dried fruits and other food supplies on the upper floors. Consequently, each building typically has a hook fixed to the front, which was to help raise food stores up to the second or third floors instead of carrying it up the stairs.

The city’s greatest benefactors, before Secularization occurred (when the state stripped the Church and monasteries of their power and most of their belongings), were the different groups of monks who came to the city. Each had a different neighborhood and Church. The Franciscans had a large presence and so did the Benedictines (who built the only Baroque church in the area). Their main church is made out of sandstone, and has mixed styles, Baroque, Gothic and “Romanisch.” This church is dedicated to Mary, I believe, and has a bronze door which features women in both the old and new testaments.

Our guide also told us how the monks and nuns provided a lot of services to the city, like hospitals and schools. One such place, St. Ursula, cared for the sick, the old, and orphans in the city. It was lucky to receive donations from benefactors to stay open. When the city seized all of the Church’s holdings, they now had to pay for these services which the Church had previously provided for free.

Our tour ended back at the Museum and she took us into the former Church, which is now a concert hall. The roof at one point during the 1700’s had caved in from an attack on the city, and was quickly rebuilt out of wood. It’s still there and sturdy today. Apparently, a world famous violin player has come to Villingen twice and performed in the hall.

Frau Brusis picked us up there with the van, a bit late again (where’s this German punctuality?) and we went back to the hostel to pick up all our luggage. We did and drove to the University she works at and left it there in a room. All day she kept making fun of me for having a large suitcase and a smaller one. I kind of wanted to tell her to shut up. My big one isn’t even full and no offense, but I’ve been the most prepared for everything so far. Like the rain for example, I have rain boots that have been one of the best things that I packed. And I can and have managed carrying it all up three flights of steps and dragging it around three different airports, thank you very much.

From there, we went to the University dining hall. I ate fish patties with too many potatoes. And I made Dan try carbonated apple juice. He liked it. Then Frau Brusis gave us our orientation, which was basically a joke. She gave us each a folder, with our company/museum name, contact, and what time we’re supposed to be there. There were also a few pamphlets about the area and her university. Sadly, it’s mostly useless information right now…why do I need to know and have a book describing how attending the University will be life changing, cultural and good for me? It might make more sense if I were actually attending the university, but they aren’t really providing me with anything more after today. Oh well.

After all that, Frau Brusis left us in the care of Luba, who had come on the excursion yesterday. We were to amuse ourselves until 2 30 when we were to go to the “Uhrindustrie Museum” for a tour, which I will get to later. Basically, we just wandered around the city. Luba took us by a lake with a swan and a few ducks. Then we went to her apartment which she rents with her best friend. Both are students at the same University Frau Brusis teaches at. They served us tea and biscuits, which was very nice due to the ever present cold outside. We stayed there and talked for a while, then we went on to the Museum which is nearby.

Luba’s friend, Olga, came with us. I felt bad, because she spoke pretty good German, just the Russian accent impeded my understanding a few times. The Museum was quite unknown to us upon arrival. First we met our English tour-guide (who was pretty funny) who had to first find out how we were paying. Frau Brusis hadn’t said anything to us about paying, so we assumed the University was picking up the tab. A search through the Museum’s mail didn’t yield any payment, so our guide decided he would just bill the University. Fine by me.

Basically the Museum was about the history of clock making in Schwenningen. This was apparently the clock making capital of the world at one point. But not anymore because Southeast Asia is cheaper. But they have a ton of the old machines from around 80-120 years ago and all of them still work! Our guide was kind of like a kid in a candy store when he turned on all the machines and gave us demonstrations of how they work. And descriptions of what they could do to you if they broke or one of your appendages got in the way. And how they used to clean up.

For example, the machines were hooked up to a motor by using belts. He told us if one of the belts broke and was big enough, it could crack your skull open if it hit you. Another machine had thirty tons of force coming down to punch out a piece of metal. If your finger got in the way (which was very possible), it would be gone. He also cautioned against “long hairs” getting caught in the machines.

There were two ways of cleaning things that they used to use in the museum. The first was chloroform. Some people would get addicted and have to bring home a small bottle to sniff to avoid getting the shakes. The second chemical they used to clean, was potassium cyanide. The same chemical the Nazis used to kill people, or commit suicide. But factory owners in this time didn’t care so much about the safety of their workers, as you can see. Apparently they used to have barrels of this stuff just laying around in the open. And when they needed to get rid of it, where did they put it? In the river, which would change color by the day pending on the chemicals being put into it. Apparently the ground under some of the more modern buildings is also polluted, but to remedy that, when the old factories were demolished, they just quickly built over them, so environmentalists wouldn’t notice.

By the end of the tour, I had some pretty cool pictures and souvenirs, for free! One of the machines made the clock hands (brass), and he let us take some. At the end of the tour, he also brought out a display of clock faces and we each got to select one. Very cool. I wasn’t expecting such hospitality. He also let us into the work room of the volunteers who come once a week to still make clocks. It’s kind of a secret room, because if some people see it, they might steal the ideas. He said the oldest volunteer is 84 years old, had knee replacements and then still came with his crutches.

To make things a little clearer, all the clocks made in this area were made mostly by hand. There were no conveyer belts or plastics used. Just metal and handiwork. The volunteers that come, still use the same methods used from the old days, using the old machines and sometimes making their own tools if the one they need no longer exists. They still make alarm clocks, about 150 a year. If you want to buy one, it’s about a two year wait. So, these clocks are very special; the only ones in the world still made this way.

After the tour, we still had about an hour before we had to show up for the Welcome Party. On our way back, Luba asked if we would want to get some ice cream. I said that maybe it was too cold for ice cream (it was really, especially if you have to then go back outside) and if there was a bakery around. We found one after looking at a few. I found my Schoko-Croissant and was happy. It was a little bigger and cheaper than the ones in Vienna. For those of you who don’t know, a Schoko-Croissant is a normal croissant with a fudgy chocolate filling in the middle. But there’s really never enough chocolate. Once done, we headed out into the cold and to the University.

We were early, but just sat and talked as slowly some students we’d met the other nights came. In the midst of talking with them, my host families arrived. This was awkward for two reasons: one, I sat with them instead of any of the other students but I couldn’t very well ignore them and two, out of the three students, only I had host families that came. Sarah had to take a train alone to Heidenheim and Dan was driven to Freiburg with a student from the area. So, I not only felt left out, but that I was excluding others.

For food, we had about four cakes, a big basket of pretzels, some home made hamburgers (for the Americans, haha, we eat so many, we’ll miss them!), salad, and some shish kebaps. I had a piece of cake with strawberries and cream on top (amazing and my second host mother made it) and a few shish kebaps. Each hamburger had been doused with mayo, which makes a whole lot of sense since we do that all the time, and so I didn’t eat any.

In the end, my first family, Brause, drove me home and the other went to pick up the daughter from physical therapy. My second host family, Reinl, has the mother and daughter and then the mother’s boyfriend, who lives in Hamburg most of the time. As she put it, “I get my peace and quiet and then he comes home for a week or two.” They also used to have two cats, but one died this week. The drive “home” was pretty, and suddenly we were driving up a mountainside to their house.