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Travelogue Germany 1993

EPISODE 2

Sunday Go-to-Meetin'

Morning came far too quickly. Martin shook me awake, and my eyes were assaulted by light from the huge bay window. It was an overcast, but bright day. My body longed for sleep, but my head convinced my body to stumble from the bed.

The shower was in the basement, shared by the other student tennants in the building. Martin went over the complex procedure of turning switches and knobs to activate the shower, then left me to the business of showering in the cold room. I was surprised that I remembered all of the instructions and actually had a nice, warm shower to start the day.

After showering, I walked back up to the room, and dressed for church. Martin had prepared a European style breakfast for us, which consisted of rich coffee, bread, jam, sausage and Brie cheese. While we ate Martin briefly went over our schedule for the day-- church, back to the apartment to pack and then to Zavelstein by bus, train and car.

After breakfast, we began the walk to the Baptist Church that Martin attended in Esslingen. This time we took a completely different route to the city-- down a flight of stairs which were closer to Martin's apartment. As we descended, I noticed that on both sides of the stairs, bits of houses poked out between trees and bushes-- an interesting place for a house, I thought. The walk to the bottom seemed endless, but eventually we did reach the bottom.

The church was not a large cathedral my any means-- as a matter of fact it seemed to blend in with the other buildings that lined the street. We entered, passing a few teenage greeters at the door and found a pew near the rear portion of the sanctuary in which to sit.

Moments later, the service began and of course was conducted in German-- I only recognized a few of the familiar hymn tunes, and an occasional word or two. Martin informed me about what was happening in general terms, but it was too difficult to get into much detail. It was an odd feeling to attend service in which I was unable to understand what was really going on.

After the service, Martin and I stayed for a few minutes and spoke with a few of his friends-- well actually, they spoke together and I attempted to listen. They had no idea that I was n American visitor, until one of them asked me a direct question in German. They were quite surprised when I answered I dont speak much Deutsch in English. The conversation then continued in English and I learned that one of the guys had spent a practical term in London-- and he had a near-perfect British accent!

After 30 minutes of visiting, we realized we had to get going if we planned on getting everything packed to make our bus and then the train. During the walk back to his apartment, Martin gave me the Readers Digest Condensed Version of the sermon in English, so that I could at least benefit from the message after the fact.

The Chase

After hurriedly packing our gear, we left the apartment. The heavy, black apartment gate swung closed and we could see our bus driving off, down the hill. We were left with one alternative-- the same stairs we had taken that morning to church. It must have been quite a sight to see the two of us, loaded with luggage, bounding down the stairs trying to beat that bus to the bottom of the hill. I felt as if I were competing in an Olympic event! At the bottom of the stairs, we ran to the bust stop and were able to catch the correct bus and then our connecting train, both just in the nick of time.

Rolf, Martin's father, met us in the small town of Gaertringen which was one of the the furthest city train stations outside of Stuttgart. He met us outside of the bahnhof, where we loaded our gear into the trunk of his little red Opel.

On to Zavelstein

It was about a twenty-five minute trip to the Kohnleins home in Zavelstein. We wound along two lane roads through dense, Black Forest pines, climbing higher and higher into the cool forest. Soon we arrived at number 33 Schulstrasse--The home of the Kohnleins. It was built in the Swabian style-- low and wide with heavy wooden beam construction and wooden planters below the windows. Flowers were popular with the people here-- planters seemed to appear on every window, of each house that we saw along the way. I knew that my grandmother would have loved to see that display of color.

The house was on a ridge overlooking the town, with a great view of the valley and Swabian Alps. These alps are a bit different than the Swiss alps, in that they are smaller and are covered with a thick layer of pines.

I was directed to the guest room on the second floor, my home away from home. I was happy to put my luggage down finally, and spent a few moments taking advantage of the vantage point, high in the hills. It was relaxing to stop and admire the view and breathe the cool air flowing in through the open windows. The silence was broken with Martin's knock on the door and invitation to come downstairs for dinner.

My First Homemade German Meal

Dinner had been waiting for us, so we sat at the table, gave thanks, and began to eat. Mrs. Kohnlein had prepared quite a variety of food, including beef with spaetzle, tomatoes, asparagus and beans. It was my first experience with spaetzle, which is a kind of German flour noodle with an uncommon shape, nothing like Italian pasta. Usually this specialty is served with meat and gravy.

During the meal I had an opportunity to tell of my tour and converse with Martin's family in part English and part German. Rolf seemed very interested in speaking English, and was actulally pretty good-- once and a while he would pronounce a word in a humorous way and it was difficult to keep from chuckling. I was careful to remind myself that my German speaking probably made a few Germans laugh as well.

Dessert was just as delicious as dinner rich German coffee and Mrs. Kohnleins famous boysenberry cake. Martin's mother suggested that we take a walk to the altstadt, to visit with Matthias, Martin's younger brother who was performing with a local musical group there.

Altstadt Zavelstein

Fortress Zavelstein was ancient and inviting. At the center of town stood the ruins of the fortress and tower, built in 1271 as a defense against foreign invaders. The top of the tower provided and amazing view, because Zavelstein is situated on top of a Swabian Alp. From here, I was able to see the hills and valleys for several miles in all directions, as well as tiny references to small towns built into those hillsides and valleys.

Directly below Zavelstein to the south was Bad Teinach, known throughout Germany for its mineral water, called Teinacher. Here, along with several other sites in the Black Forest, water is drawn from natural springs, bottled, packaged and distributed across Germany and Europe.

We moved to the north end of the tower, where I sketched the town of Zavelstein while peering over the edge of the fortress. I found it interesting that the buildings were built so closely to one another. From the top of the tower we noticed the remains of an ancient building foundation in an open lot below. I imagined that it may have been destroyed in a raid, or by the effects of time. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of sketching, we made the climb down the stairs of the tower.

We stopped for a few minutes to listen to a tour guide dressed in traditional garb, speak about the fortress to several tourists. We spent about two hours in old Zavelstein before making the trip back to Martin's house on the hillside.

Planning for the Tour

That evening, we enjoyed Schwartzwaldeshinken (pork slices smoked over pine needles), summer sausage, sliced turkey and a vegetable salad for supper. It was another enjoyable meal mixed with conversation in German and English. Martin's father Rolf was hard at work, practicing his English, while I struggled with my German, and it was quite fun.

After eating, the Martin and I relaxed in the living room discussing interesting sights to see, with suggestions from his mother and father. We planned to head South towards Switzerland and the areas around the Lake of Constance or Bodensee as they called it. Several ideas bounced back and forth between all of us, until we had a good general idea of where we wanted to go the following day. Satisfied that with our plans we said goodnight to everyone and went upstairs to bed.

Sketches from 1993


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