Have you ever watched the movie “Das Boot” (produced by Wolfgang Peterson)? Or / and have you ever read the book “Das Boot” by Lothar-Günther Buchheim? Have you ever heard of Bernried, a village that fought 15 years against the donation of a world-class art museum, the collection of Lothar-Günther Buchheim, who got the inspiration to his book when working on submarines during WWII as a war correspondent and who not only collected and made art himself, but also put together numerous pieces from the movie production? If you answered „yes“ to any of those questions, you should visit the Buchheim Museum in Bernried! If you answered „no“ to any of the question, you definitely should visit the Buchheim Museum!!!

Thanks to the weather goddess and my brother-in-law Erwin who planned a whole day around the Starnberger See, we had a great day exploring and enjoying ourselves!

After a second breakfast in Bernried and the museums visit, we drove to the castle in Höhenried, a perfect wedding location – we just don’t know anybody who wants to wear wedding shoes right now…..

Exhausted by visual overstimulation, we needed lunch. Erwin had – of course – not forgotten about that and we ended up in Münsing at the Altwirt restaurant to enjoy a tasty Bavarian lunch

Before driving back to Munich, we visited the Leini Memorial, where King Ludwig II drowned under suspicious circumstances. Up to this day it is a big mystery why such an avid swimmer would die in shallow waters right after the fact that he was disowned for spending too much money on all his fairytale castles and buildings! Go figure!

Back in Munich we met my nieces Stefanie and Christina and had a drink at Santa Anna in the Gärtnerplatz area. Since the weather was so gorgeous (25*C) it seemed that everybody in Munich was out and about

We enjoyed this day so much! Thank you Petra & Erwin!

What is streetart? Is it the same as graffiti? What street art and graffiti have in common is the fact that both are art forms in public places. It all started with graffiti as an illegal way of rejection. Later on, when it got more accepted and the pure rejection changed into provocation, when artists got permission to make art in public spaces, then we talk about street art. It is deeper, more meaningful, it has a message, it can be political, it is done with the intention to provoke the viewer. Nowadays street art can be done as a commission, or like here in Ingolstadt as a competition. As you can see, the work is fantastic!

I’m a big fan of street art and I think it should stay where the artist intended it to be: right there, on the street (and not inside a gallery or museum)!

😬 I guess I shouldn’t walk so much so that the swelling goes down

🧐 I guess I should walk a little more so that I can stop the Thrombose shots

🥴 I guess I cannot take showers for another 4-5 days

I love games! Boardgames, card games, parlor games, etc. And today we played the train game. The rules are as follows:

1. Go to the train station

2. Buy a ticket, best is a flexible ticket like the Bavaria Ticket (that can be used by up to 5 people for one day all over Bavaria)

3. Choose a platform and…

4. … take the next train leaving from that platform!

It is fun and adventurous! And we ended up in Ulm, a 2-hour train ride from Ingolstadt. It was especially fun because we drove with a Bavaria ticket and Ulm is “a divided city”; one half is in Bavaria (=Neu-Ulm) and the other half is in Baden-Würtenberg (=Ulm). And that’s where the train-station and the oldtown are. So technically we stretched out our Bavaria ticket slightly to the west. The train tracks follow the Danube river upstream in western direction, the views are soaked with stunning fall colors, cranes, pheasants, deer and many other animals near the tracks. The train crosses the river several times, and – since it is a regional train – it stops at almost every train station along the way. One of which is Leibheim, a german army base where my older brother Anton had to serve his draft time many years ago.

Ulm was a big surprise for both of us, with its small streets, lined with beautiful timber-framed houses, some of which from the 14th century!

And we saw birds, big birds and I mean BIG BIRDS!

And we saw Pretzels, tons of them! I guess in Ulm, “it’s raining pretzels, hallelujah, it’s raining pretzels”

“In Ulm und um Ulm und um Ulm herum”

Back at my moms house with 42 steps. When I grew up there I loved the fact that my sister and I had our shared room in the attic, tucked away from the rest of the family. The floor underneath, the first floor (in America it would be called the second floor) has the bathroom and 3 more bedrooms for my two brothers and parents. The ground floor (in America: first floor) is the living room, kitchen and a toilet (in America: powder room) and last but not least the basement, which contains the utility rooms, storage, the laundry room and the pantry with the fridge and freezers. Meal preparations means frequent visits to the basement, so you spend a lot of time hopping up and down stairs. Leftovers? They end up in the pantry in the basement. That’s where you also store your wine and beer, because it is always cold down there. Year-round! Usually the kitchen has only a small fridge, the size or a 30” wide cabinet, roughly 40” tall. Not enough room for the food of a family of six. That’s why you have that cold pantry room underground which is very handy: baskets with onions and sacks of potatoes, canned food, apples, etc. We always had a whole prosciutto and several salamis hanging from the ceiling and the smell of those cured meats was just mesmerizing! As a child I always hated to go to the basement, because it was dark and full of stuff. You had to walk through several rooms in order to pick up potatoes for dinner and all the rooms are lined up in a row, so you had to walk through the room to reach the next one and the next etc. For a child, the basement seemed huge, scary and cold! One room had the light switch on the far end next to the door to the following room, which means you had to cross the room in the dark before you could switch on the light. And another room had the switch behind the door in the corner where there were spiderwebs every time I had to go for the potatoes. And if you don’t know yet: Germans love potatoes! So we had potatoes several times a week. And one of the rooms had a piano 🤩 where I taught myself to play. That room had good lighting but was also freezing cold, so my piano time was limited until my fingers were stiff 😵‍💫🥶. Another room was my dads workshop and car part storage. If he didn’t work in his garage, he was in his basement workshop repairing anything and everything the whole neighborhood, all our relatives and his colleagues at work would need to be fixed or changed or repurposed. He was known to have golden hands! And then there was that room with a huge wood and coal fired furnace that heated the whole house! It was fascinating to listen to this ceiling high metal monster as it heated up those cold winter days. Sometimes we were asked to put a few more shovels of coal into it – another opportunity to visit the basement! Or, as my brother Jürgen remembered, one of our chores were to take the garbage not out, but downstairs. Meaning: it went straight into our huge oven! Anything from paper to cardboard, potato skin, apple pits, etc. went into the hot monster. Also my Guinea pig “Struppi”, that dropped dead overnight and my dad wanted to spare me the shock and gave “Struppi” a one-of-kind Guinea pig cremation before we sat down for breakfast 🥴. My least favorite time was when a big truck delivered coal or firewood and we had to bring it down into the basement. The wood had to be stacked up against the wall inside that room. Spider alert! Big, fat, dark, hairy spiders! They came with the firewood and when we stacked the wood, they would always scare the shit out of me. Did I ever mention that I don’t like spiders? That’s pretty much the only source of protein I would not try to eat! And maggots. Of course… Over the years the coal furnace left the house and in came a big oil tank, but that was installed in another room. The coal furnace room is now the laundry room btw.

So now I hobble up and down the stairs and remember lots of childhood details, habits and stories. Maybe that helps my healing?!? Anyway, we are planning our upcoming adventures and we look forward to those!

Surgery is never fun. But when you end up in a hospital, you have the advantage of getting visitors who bring you attention, flowers and chocolate. When you don’t end up in a hospital (like me), you still get visitors who bring you attention, but no flowers and no chocolate. So much for that, but the biggest advantage of not ending up in a hospital is, that you can play tourist in your own hometown! Right after surgery we checked in a hotel downtown Ingolstadt which is located in the center of Oldtown: Hotel Adler

https://www.hotel-adler-ingolstadt.de/en/

Recovering at my moms house was out of question: Inside are 42 steps to conquer and that doesn’t accommodate the healing process in any positive way. So we chose this hotel, we got a little apartment on the ground floor and I didn’t have to climb any stairs since waking up from the anesthesia! Perfect! And I get visitors to distract me and – here comes the best part – who show Ted around! Best tour guide award so far: my brother in law Erwin! Thank you for showing Ted many of those special places Ingolstadt has to offer!

Another highlight was the WWI Museum in the Klenzepark that Ted enjoyed A LOT! Unfortunately – fortunately all the explanations were in German only – otherwise Ted wouldn’t be back yet

https://www.armeemuseum.de/en/exhibitions/museum-of-world-war-i/permanent-exhibition.html

In the meantime my favorite sister and I went to a big one-day-long fabric market in town. We had a blast! Everything a real Schneider (=Taylor) cannot live without: fabrics (of course), notions, ribbons, buttons, zippers, threads, patterns, tools and equipment, etc. It was like heaven!!!

Having surgery in Germany is very similar to having surgery in the US, but one big difference is the fear of blood clots. After a surgery, and even just a meniscus surgery, you have to wear Thrombose stockings for a week (on both legs) and give yourself Thrombose shots every day! Too bad that those stockings don’t have a color choice, they are all white and look like hospital! How about hot pink? Or cobalt blue? I do like my blue crutches though 😎

10am: nice visit from my sister‘s family; good food at a Greek restaurant. Life is good!

It’s 1pm and I already walked 1.28 miles today. With crutches. Now: rest and icepack. All is good. I’m ready for the afternoon!

And the afternoon was filled with more family visits from my niece and my mom & partner. Tea & cake was super good, Italian dinner was delicious, 2.52 miles, I’m good! No pain killers necessary since the surgery!

Surgery is done, now I can rest at a nice hotel downtown Ingolstadt, where Ted can walk and explore my hometown and I can recover! Back to crutches now…