Zurich and Walhalla

It is getting cold here, but yesterday things heated up around 2 in the afternoon. I was enjoying a leisurely Sunday after 3 consistently busy weeks, bundled up in my room and catching up on a few TV shows from back home before heading into town to visit the Christmas market on the grounds of the Thurn & Taxis palace, when I heard sirens. I looked outside to see first an ambulance, then another, then a police car, and finally some fire engines. Then it came to my attention that there were people out in the street pointing at my building and I heard the sounds of many boots clambering up the stairs outside my room. This seemed like as good a time as any to collect my important documents, some shoes, and a warm coat. The hallway smelled of smoke, and I asked an off-duty police officer standing in the entry way who did not look terribly happy to be there on his day off if we needed to evacuate. The answer was no, thankfully. The fire had been put out before the emergency crews had even gotten there. Someone started a fire in one of the kitchens in the upper floors, which engulfed the hood over the stove.

The paper this morning said that there was an unattended pot on the stove, but that there could have been a defect in the hood. Nonetheless, four people had to go to the hospital with smoke inhalation, but all returned home that night. The building itself was not lit afire, but there was about 20,000 Euro worth of damage done to the kitchen. So that was my Sunday, how was yours?

I will write again next week about Christmas here in picturesque Regensburg, but for now I will give you an overdue update of what I've been up to the last month.

School has been going well but has been busy, I forgot how much damn time all the reading takes, and getting back into the habit was a little rough at first. I'm now well-settled into my new routine of lectures and seminars, and have begun research into a possible topic for my Masters Thesis. I've been doing my best to get out there and meet people, attending a lot of events organized through the international students' club. Two of those events were a weekend trip to Zurich, and a day trip to "Walhalla." 

For those of you who are a little rusty on your Norse mythology, Valhalla spelled with a "W" in German, is the hall of Odin, the patriarch of the Gods. It is a place reserved for great heroes and those who have died in battle, like Elysium in the Grecco-Roman mythology. There the heroes feast and drink, and pairs from among them are chosen to fight to the death for Odin's pleasure. The next day they rise again and ride once more to Valhalla. They do this day in and day out waiting for Ragnarok, the final apocalyptic battle in which the gods will be overthrown, and the Earth will be destroyed and remade. All of humanity will perish save for one man and one woman who will begin the human race anew. 

Now I did not die and go join my ancient fore-fathers at the long table, but I went to a great temple constructed in the 19th century by King Ludwig I that is down the river from Regensburg. Therein are housed the busts of great figures of German ancestry from all of history, and plaques for very ancient figures whose likeness is not known, people like Charlemagne and Hermann. It is constructed in the style of a Greek temple because classicism was all the rage in those days, although it seems a little odd to me that the greatest of the ancient Germanic heavens is depicted in this fashion. I think a massive mead mead hall would be cooler and more fitting, but what do I know. The newest bust to have been added is that of Sophie Scholl, a student at the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich where I did an exchange year (construction on the university was begun by the same King Ludwig I who built Walhalla, a very enlightened person and patron of the arts). Sophie Scholl was a principle member of the White Rose, a resistance movement during WWII that circulated pamphlets and information about what was really happening in the Third Reich. All of the members of the Weiße Rose were eventually found and executed, and there is a terrific movie from the last few years called The Trial of Sophie Scholl that is about this movement, part of which was filmed at the university I attended.

At the beginning of November the international students club made a trip to Zurich. I had only ever passed through Switzerland and it presented an opportunity to visit my cousin Lauren who works there. It was about a 7 hour trip that afforded me a lot of time to read, but we went by bus so I didn't really have the space to get much work done. As you can imagine, Switzerland is very clean and neat, and everything runs like a Swiss watch. Zurich is in the German speaking part of Switzerland, but the Swiss speak a dialect that is so strange even the Germans have a hard time understanding them. We were able to get by just fine but listening to people talk or to the radio is like listening to someone from Appalachia speak.

Zurich, like Regensburg, is centered on an old Roman fort, making it quite old indeed. It is also similar to Regensburg in that it largely consists of a confusing tangle of narrow, winding  medieval streets that would present muggers with plenty of excellent opportunities if it wasn't so safe there. I managed to navigate my way into the city and meet-up with my dear cousin for dinner. It being the season for game meat, and since we both are big fans, we got some lovely venison with Spätzle on the side. Then we went for a walk along Bahnhofstraße which is like the 5th Avenue of Switzerland and one of the most renowned shopping districts in the world. I would wager it has the greatest concentration of watch and chocolate shops anywhere in the world.

The next day I went with a group of people up to the Üeteilberg which the is the highest point in the area and offers amazing views of the city on a clear day, which we were lucky enough to have. It was unbelievably windy at the top of the observation tower but well worth the climb and the wind-swept hair styles we all acquired. There were plenty of people out doing the same as us, with many dogs running around and having a good time chasing one another, as well as trying to steal sausages and french fries from little kids. After an hour we headed back into town for our tour of the city.

Our tour was conducted by a charming old lawyer who had keys to get us into all sorts of neat little areas we could have otherwise never seen. At one point he stuck a key into a wall, and the floor next to him started to open up by means of a hydraulic lift. Underneath were some excavated walls from the old Roman fort and succeeding medieval castle, and the superiority of the Roman engineers was apparent by their well shaped and fitted stones, while the later walls were just thrown together. He showed us buildings that still had medieval frescoes on the walls, and took us into what had been a medieval sewer that was thankfully no longer in use.

After the tour we broke up into groups and looked for a place to eat. Naturally no one could agree on anything and everyone was complaining about how expensive everything was, and that we should keep walking until we find something cheaper. I grew impatient of walking the cobblestone streets looking at people eating and listening to complaining, as did the Austrian girl with a sprained ankle. What did these people expect? It's Switzerland. Did they really not budget for this? Finally I took charge of the situation and got us a table at a Flammkuchen restaurant telling people they could take it or leave it, and they took it. Flammkuchen is like a German pizza but without tomatoes sauce, it is traditionally served with cheese, onions, and chopped Speck (similar to bacon). After all that fuss, I decided to treat myself to a glass of Lagavulin and chow down. In case you are wondering what Lagavulin is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HgTPs2_ut8

It poured rain on the last day of our trip to Zurich, which was unfortunate because checkout time was 10 AM and our bus didn't leave until 4. So a group of, not wanting to hang out in the common room of the hostel for 6 hours, decided to go to the national museum of Zurich, housed in an old medieval palace and filled with rooms with beautiful wood paneling and carvings. It was huge and we had to economize our time, but I had to spend time at their special exhibit on Karl der Große in der Schweiz or "Charlemagne in Switzerland" which had an amazing collection of artifacts including some books with ivory covers that were very highly prized in those days. In fact, Charlemagne had a pet elephant that was a gift to him from the Caliph of Baghdad that he took with him wherever he went (none of the books were made from the elephant). So after spending hours looking at paintings, carved figures and coats of arms, it was finally time to leave the Alps. 

That's if for now. Next week I will write a special Christmas blog for everyone, so tune in for that. For now I will leave you with a picture of the mischievous Katze that manages to find it's way into my building all the time. It keeps trying to adopt me by trying to run into my room and once literally jumped into my arms. It doesn't have a collar or anything so I can't tell if it is a free range kitty or simply someone's cat in the neighborhood who prefers the tins of food people put out for it in the building to what it gets back home. It certainly had the good sense not to be anywhere near our building when the kitchen upstairs caught on fire.