Sunday, July 6, 2008

sunday in town
























































cloudy day today..raining on and off. good day to be lazy...we will stick around town. made a nice breakfast omelette with potatos, onions, bell pepper, some schinken ..german bacon kind of...it was good. watched some of the formula 1 race in silverstone england. i think gisi likes cars as much as i do..especially 60's muscle cars.
after breakfast, we walked to the local cemetary. look at the pix..quite different from the usa. i have it from reliable sources that the germans treat their dead better than the living, and i kinda get that. if you think nyc is bad, in regards to personal contact and greetings of neighbors and strangers, you should see over here. i've unsuccesfully tried many times to say..hello...good morning..good evening, and in german. all i get is a blank stare or a very terse hallo.
but the cemetary...check it out..like a park and museum rolled into one. meticulous. i took a lot of pix it was so beautiful...notice the chapel, if you can call it that. huge! and the crematorium with he pyre atop. the ashes in urns are then placed in the cubby holes in the wall surrounding the crematorium. i really liked the one wooden cross with the little roof...he was a scheinermeister..a master woodworker. some of the monuments were like modern art. notice the ww I monument to the women who served in the army.
and the ponds, and see the water troughs with the yellow water containers next to them...all over..how long would they last in the states? they even have wheel barrows so you can take your plants from the car to the grave. gisi says it's really stunning in the fall, i could just imagine.

there are some pix of the neighborhood..street cars, etc. on the way back. only a 5 minute walk.

when we got back, i took the bike out to take some pix around town and at the wine festival. some great people pix...everyone looks so...german. funny, i think we are so used to a mixed race culture, it's a bit startling to see everyone from the same race, more or less. the kids are all beautiful..eyeglasses very funky, ..very interesting scene. notice the little streams that run thru town..they are called bächele.....if you step in one, legend has it you will marry a freiburger, or bobolee..the architecture is amazing, and kept in tip top shape.
i had a wurst in the square with some harissa on it...really spicy...the flammkuchen looked really good to, i have to try that another day...tschüß....until tomorrow

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Al- Great photos! I especially love the ones of the cemetery--- absolutely beautiful. Does Gisi know where Wegberg is (on the very western side of Germany)? Amy is there right now and Dylan is flying over on Wed. They'll be there for two weeks, so they are also enjoying the weather and beautiful countryside! Looking forward to more pics! Love, Joann

debbie said...

You rock with that camera Allen Vella! It was great talking to you and Gisi last night--the IPhone earbuds work great. We each get one bud!!!
Photo on.
Blog on.

Unknown said...

Looks like such a charming town. So very clean.