im urlaub

H and I are touring the exquisite Baltic coast, and PfRC is on sabbatical too.  Please check out Our Little Travel blog for further adventures.

alsatian

Just returned from a prolonged test drive of our new camper, H and I are very relaxed.  That really is the way to travel and my head is just swirling with impressions.  A curious storch visited us one late afternoon at our campsite but definitely did not come bearing a baby, and though we never saw anyone parading about for the tourists in traditional garments, the black bonnet that the women supposedly wear reminds me of this inflatable friendly spider headdress that I had for a Halloween costume, circa 1979.

The little villages were amazingly picturesque--one in fact won award a few years back for being the "cutest" town in France.  This cuteness did not fade, however, and probably gets better with age and spurs on the competition.  The last town we stayed in, Neuf-Brisach, right on the German border was really embelmatic of the whole region--one that switched nationalities and allegiances five times during the last 150 years.  It is a former garrison town, balustraded by imposing ramparts, and really impressive looking from a strategic perspective.  Though very much in contrast, it reminded me of the last place we visited during our last visit to France--to the site where the armistices were signed in the Forest of Compiègne.

some people call me Maurice

H and I took a short trip on a lazy Sunday to nearby Coburg. Usually, I have to hunt through the city center to find a unique manhole cover to take a picture of, but in Coburg, every one had a depiction of the crest, an image of St. Moritz the city's patron. It had been years since I had been in Coburg and had never managed to see the town itself, only the fortress on the hill where Martin Luther was kept under house-arrest and finished translating the New Testament into German. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert cohabitated there for a time as well, and the whole city is drenched with seated and dethrowned royalty. There's row upon row of fantastic art deco buildings and a sackful of little castes knocking about--including one that looks like a transplanted Buckingham Palace. Albeit, there were some notorious things that went along with that hertitage as well, but it seems that sometimes city's forget and maybe appreciate the reminder that they are not some historical backwater. Even our fair village was founded by Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne as a gift to wife, and who's ever heard of Wickedawesomestadt?

i've got a brand new pair of roller-skates

A few days ago, I purchased a new mini-notebook to replace the trusty but unwieldy computer than I had been lugging around long since it's expected and planned-obsolescence. I think there's a communal sort of shame that pressures one into buying a new computer, as if one is forcing one's old model to perform too long into old age and past when it should be allowed to retire with dignity--like forcing one's own grandmother to earn her keep and subsist off of cat food. Transfering my photograph albums from the old beast to the sleek new one, however, I rediscovered a few things I had forgotten about. One was a short film--actually numbingly and crazy-making long, that was captured six or seven years ago to demonstrate my successful installation and set-up of a micro-spy-camera. The piece is only footage of my ashtray on the windowsill under varying color filters with the snowy night sky in the background--maybe eight minutes in duration. I am sure that this video would become viral and absolutely turn anyone who watches it stark-raving mad, like in that movie, The Ring. So, it's probably best to keep it from the public. Another thing I found was a collection of manhole covers. For some time, whenever I travel somewhere new, I have been taking pictures of unique manhole covers, like this fancy one from Weimar--it does not strike me as a particularly original thing to do but I have enjoyed doing so and getting stares. I just had forgotten that I had bothered to attempt to gather them all in one place before. One should take time to ply through the archives, once and a while.