From Zürich to Saarbrücken

Another potential name for this entry was "stomach rumbles and toilet troubles". But I'd rather focus on the good parts of my travel-vacation, and there were certainly some great ones despite the minor food poisoning. 

My flight from Istanbul left at 3am on Sunday morning. Somehow, even though I was unbelievably exhausted from the lack of sleep and the late-night flying, everything went incredibly smoothly. The shuttle from my hostel, getting easyjet to let me check my luggage, leaving on time, arriving in Basel, getting Swiss francs from an atm at the airport, finding a bus to take me to the train station, buying a train ticket to Zurich, taking the 30-minute train ride, and finally, having a few Swiss francs left over to take the #11 tram from the Zurich train station to Lisie's cozy apartment. 

I arrived at 7am, a good three hours before she was expecting me, but after a bit of futzing she got over that fact and welcomed me warmly. Lisie is always incredibly excited to have me come, and equally sad to see me leave. Unfortunately I just don't have the time to stay with her as long as she'd like me to (and occasionally I think that I wouldn't have the patience... living with students is just not the same as living with an almost-80 year old). We chatted for a few hours over a breakfast of tea and sopf, or a braided bread that she buys for special occasions. She let me get some sleep after that. I was passed out in her bed for a good five hours before I had energy to go back out and say hi again. She made me pfannkuchen for lunch, in other words, very very buttery and sweet pancakes with applesauce. Lisie is very possessive of her kitchen; she would never allow me to help her cook, nor could she handle it if I commented on the excessive amounts of butter she uses in her cooking. Our big plan for the afternoon was to go by tram to the train station to buy my train tickets for the next leg of my journey, to Saarbrücken, that Tuesday. Lisie was at first looking forward to going out (as was I, since it was about ten degrees warmer than it had been in Istanbul, and I was so excited to see some signs of spring). We walked incredibly slowly, however, her with one arm latched onto mine. While there we both complained at the amount of people. Tons of skiers, just coming home from a day trip to the alps (incredible, eh?), along with people getting ready to travel for Easter. She complained again at the hard seats in the Ticketing office, saying she didn't have enough bacon on her bones to handle sitting for too long. But we made it, stopped briefly at a grocery store (also packed) and then gradually climbed our way back home to her apartment. Just that one outing and she was kaputt, totally exhausted. We looked over some pictures for a while, talked about her parents (her favorite subject, very very cute), and then she made me some pork and rice for dinner. 

Nature shows on TV ensued, which is another big part of what we do together. Lisie loves her television, but it has to be "intelligent" programming, as she calls it. The news, travel shows and nature shows always seem to be running in the background in Lisie's apartment. Unfortunately Lisie cannot hear as well as she used to, and she cannot keep her languages straight. So while the TV is on she tries to chat with me in an incredibly loud voice, sometimes commenting on what is going on in the news. She does this, however, in three different dialects: regular German (what I can understand and speak), Schwäbisch (the dialect that my great-grandparents maybe used in southwest Germany), and Swiss German (the worst of all... it sounds like a mix between yoda-speak and an ostrich, as I described it to Erika in an email). So the language thing and the hearing thing and the TV thing all put together is what tires ME out when I'm at Lisies. Too much noise all at once.

But nonetheless we usually have a very nice time together. We went the following day with her life-partner Otti to a beautiful restaurant about twenty minutes outside of the city. Of course in a car one is far more mobile than when one relies on public transportation, and it was nice for me to get out of the apartment for a bit. While filtering through her closet, Lisie happened upon some of her favorite items of clothing that she couldn't bare to give away. One of these items caught my eye, and I tried it on, a big red skirt with white squares. She rejoiced when she saw that it fit, and once I added a belt to it it didn't look half bad. So I wore the skirt to lunch that day. We ate a really classy meal, with some sort of chive cream soup and chicken and polenta and cranberries and a creme brulee for dessert. Mmmmm, I'm pretty sure the stomach problems could not have come from that meal. When we were about to leave, Otti saw to his disappointment and slight embarrassment that he could not unlock the car. After a bit of tinkering, he noticed that he had left the lights on from when he had gone through a tunnel. Luckily the sunshine made the wait for a mechanic much more bearable, but sweet Lisie could not help but complain a bit. We finally made it home and I took a solid two hour nap before a small dinner of scrambled eggs (again, lots of butter). 

Lisie and Otti at the Rössli Illnau restaurant

Lisie and I outside the restaurant, waiting for someone to jump-start the car

I had begun feeling sick that night, but as I didn't want to have Lisie worry too much I let her come to her own conclusions, that I was feeling nervous to travel. In the morning she insisted that I take a taxi to the train station. I convinced her that I would be better off with the tram, and thus left a bit early to go to an internet cafe to write some emails home. Lisie was of course sad to see me go, but she had her daily routines to get back to: walking down the 80 steps to pick up the morning newspaper, watering the roses on the rooftop terrace, watching her daily news, looking up the weather, seeing what nature shows were on that day, and calling her cousin in Strasbourg as she does at 8am every morning. She is miraculously turning 80 this year, in a couple of months. I have no idea if I can go back to visit her that weekend, but it seems to me that such a special occasion should not go uncelebrated. We'll see, but if I do go back, I'd love to have Erika or Robert there with me to bear the burden of listening to Lisie's somewhat incomprehensible stories that switch dialects every few sentences. 

Lisie with a picture of her mother, my great-grandmother Josefina

That day (a Tuesday) I had a five hour train ride ahead of me, first to Mannheim and then on to Saarbrücken, where Rolf and Gudrun Kahbhenn would be waiting for me. I had visited them about two years ago for the first time, during a big Saarland festival that involved parades and concerts. We know Rolf actually through my grandfather: when Rolf was in University he spent a year going to school in Quebec, and during vacations and holidays he stayed with my grandparents in Montreal. Therefore he knew my dad when my dad was 9 years old, and apparently his German was not too bad at that age either (Rolf can also speak french though, as can most people who live in Saarland, the western-most province of Germany, in other words right on the French border). We arrived and right away I told them about not feeling so well. We went and bought some medicine, and I rested in their apartment for a couple of hours. Rolf and Gudrun love telling me about the history of their small but proud province, so we caught up a bit over homemade apple cake and coffee that afternoon. We went to a concert in Saarbrücken that night, the German Requiem from Brahms. Beautiful, with around 60 chorus members and a full orchestra, along with two soloists. It was a "difficult piece" according to Gudrun, and when she said that I gave a sigh of relief because I found it quite hard to listen too as well. I think when she says "difficult", she means that the text is abstract, and the tones are generally dark. So not your everyday Moonlight Sonata if you will. 

Saarbrücken, the old town -->

We ate breakfast together the next morning. Rolf and I picked up some bread and groceries before leaving for the small town of Saarlouis that afternoon. Rolf is not the only one that grew up in Saarlouis; my grandmother grew up there too before she immigrated to Canada. We went and visited my great aunt on my grandmother's side (Lisie is my grandfather's sister and Hannelore is my grandmother's sister). Hannelore is unfortunately in the hospital because of a bad blood clot. She needed to have her legs operated on (one was actually taken off). She was however in really good spirits when we saw her. I was surprised to find that she has a much sharper mind than my grandmother, who is four years older. Hannelore has an incredibly close-knit family; four of her five children came in at one point or another, both to visit her and to see and welcome me. They are incredibly warm, and have for the most part stayed in or near Saarlouis. Their thick Saar dialects made it difficult for me to understand them at some points, but then they just repeated themselves slower or in regular german. These are technically the cousins of my father, so my second cousins... ? And then Stephan's son Steven (get it? that way they can differentiate between the two) also came. I think he might be my third cousin... he is twenty one and is training to be a salesman. He actually lost his eye after a tragic accident at his last job-training. He was on the track to becoming a mechanic but had to change all of his plans when he got injured. He's unfortunately a Bayern Munchen fan, but hopefully we can leave the soccer aside and keep in touch in the future :-) 

(from left to right: Monika, Steven, Hannelore, Rolf, me)

Gudrun prepared me a lovely noodle soup that night for dinner. Rolf and I stayed in to watch some soccer and a funny Saarland TV-show called "Staub", or traffic. It was literally all about what people say and do when they are stuck in totally stopped traffic on a highway. 

The next morning my grandfather paid us a visit. Now, that might sound crazy to any of you who know that my grandparents live in Montreal. It was in fact a surprise to us all that he would be in Germany for a week. He went to an airplane show at the Bodensee (lake Constance), went to visit my great-grandparents grave, and then wanted to visit some friends in the area. 

<-- Opa and Rolf with the Saarbrücken public toilets

He then came to Saarbrücken to see me and stay over at Rolf and Gudruns, which worked out perfectly because I was leaving for Karlsruhe (the last leg of my journey) that afternoon. He came around breakfast time and was surprised to hear me conversing in German. We did a little walking tour of downtown Saarbrücken afterwards. There he was incredibly impressed by the modern tram that runs through some of the main streets, as well as the somewhat complicated and very sanitary public toilets with automatically closing doors. We went all together to the train station after that. Such a short visit! Longer next time...? Or even better if they come back to Berlin again, and then we can go to the opera once or twice. 

The Saar River -->

I thanked Rolf and Gudrun for taking care of me and being understanding about my lack of energy. It was really great of Rolf to bring me to see Hannelore, too. Gudrun will be celebrating her 70th birthday in a couple of months, so I will be sure to keep in touch with them and find her a nice Berlin souvenir. And as for my grandfather, I will probably see him in Montreal this summer, with my grandmother.