Early morning, our ship transfer, and Nuremberg

“History is a vast early warning system” Norman Cousins

“I like the dreams of the future better than the histories of the past” Thomas Jefferson

SO IT BEGINS! Much to our displeasure the sun stayed constant as always and rose, well… it sat still and we continued to rotate around it, while turning on our axis, thus giving us the appearance of it rising over the horizon. Potatoes, tomatoes, however you look at it, it got too damn bright outside and put gears a turning and actions into motion. The world continued to move and we had moved right alone with it. We had to force ourselves up early so we could get some breakfast to gain energy for our long travel across the land to the new ship, less we would grow weak and get lost in the back country of Germany and starve. This shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was but due to mine and Alex’s inability to be normal adults and go to bed at a reasonable time we ended up staying up until around 3:00 AM watching films on demand in our room. We watched The Shape of Water and while we had heard lots of good things about it we both really didn’t care for it; tons of plot holes and non sensible story lines, it kinda seemed like a college film with a overblown budget. We then lucked out and watched two other films that were totally incredible; Three Billboards and The Greatest Showman. Three Billboards was very interesting and followed several characters in a pretty different way. The Greatest Showman was just lovely and was a musical, tons of fun to watch! Anyway, moving off my tangent, after breakfast we loaded up all of our stuff again, clothes and all, back into our bags and the whole boat loaded onto the buses. Through this process Alex’s bag sustained irreversible damage (the handle tore apart on two sides when she picked it up) but it still has a job to do so until we are able to find a suitable replacement it will continue to be used in its current and torn state, much like a zombie following the last thing on its mind before death, this bag will bag until it can’t bag any longer. The whole boat loaded onto six buses and we were off, burning rubber and heading for the new ship, as that ship I assume was doing the same and heading to our ship, it was a ship swap shuffle juggle, it would seem. As we left the whole ship lined up to wish us off and we had some moments with some of the staff that we had come to really enjoy. It was sad and sweet all at the same time but we stole away their program director, Bjorn, as he was in too deep with us and we gave him the Stockholm Syndrome something fierce. The bus went pretty quick, and with only one stop on the way for stretching our legs and a bathroom break, we made it to the new ship even earlier than was expected. We climbed on board and they greeted us with champagne, mimosas, shots, and little snacks! They told us “welcome home” and told us they were excited to have us finally boarding our original ship. Viking crews really know how to make you feel welcomed! Shortly after arriving on board we were able to go to our new rooms, which were the same as our old rooms, it was actually kinda tripy as these are sister ships and the only things different are the staff and the paintings on the wall. Anyway, we were on the boat long enough to eat lunch, and then it was back onto a bus… off the boat again and into Nuremberg this time…. Yah, nazi party headquarters back in the war on your honeymoon, we play for them romance keeps y’all (also the reason for the change from travel quotes to history quotes for today). We started with a bus tour that took us around to a few big ticket items, so to speak, of Nuremberg which were mostly related to the city in its most well known point of history, WW2. We saw the zeppelin fields, the parade grounds and the coliseum hitler built but never finished. We also saw the old medieval walls, opera house, the SS barracks that US forces took over and a huge old train station thats now a shopping center.

“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all” – George Washington

From here we were dropped off at the castle on top of the hill and started our descent through the old town down to the city center. From up at the castle we had a stunning view of the city. The guide had photos that were taken after the war and the way it looked made you take pause, you could see the streets and how it was obviously was the same place, while at the same time you couldn’t believe that it could possibly be the same place after looking like it did. We crossed the now dry moat and walked through the tunnel to the gate beneath the murder holes that now acted like lights shining brightly into the dark tunnel as its only true source of light. Passing through the gate at the top we moved through a few different types of courtyards spanning different time periods with slight differences in style and architecture. In the center at the tallest point of the whole place sprouted a tall tower reaching high above everything with an unobstructed view as far as anyone could ever hope to see. True to the historic fashion there was no staircase or means of entering the tower, in the event that the castle was overrun it would be your last hope to climb a rope into the tower and pull it up after you. There would have been a source of water and food so one could have sustained for a while until a surrender could be reached or in more common the case they burned down the tower with you still inside.

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history” – Martin Luther King

We worked down a multitude of stairs and small winding alleys from time to time popping out into courtyards with a statue or art piece there to catch you unawares. We saw the house of a famous artist that the tour guide was really all proud of but no-one in the group had really ever known although after seeing a few of his paintings we agreed we had seen them before but never knew much of him and the most famous piece we all recognized was actually only a sketch; the praying hands. We kept moving down the hill and boom there was another statue, of the artist no one knew and the guide told us all about him again, we listened as walking backwards to the sweet sounds of music and laughter and as she finished she took the lead once more and lead us to the courtyard in the old square where a festival was going on; that means that almost every city we have been to had a party of some sort going on while we were there. It was here our tour ended and we had some free time, so Alex and I got a pastry and coffee in a little shop overlooking the square where the workers in the time we were there broke several plates or glasses and had a good giggle about it. We walked a large horseshoe path over an old bridge, yelled at some ducks, and looped back around through an open air market going on. Here we saw a statue of what we think was remembering the exodus of people leaving the country from the holocaust, but we were not sure as it was a little odd and abstract with not a bit of English on it. We continued walking back into the square where we rubber necked around the shopping stalls and set up by the golden fountain to listen to some of the bands play before we had to meet and get back to the bus. On the bus ride back to the boat the weight of the day caught up to us quickly and we found ourselves nodding in and out. When we got back we ate and passed right out for one of the best nights of sleep we had, mostly do to the days of lack of sleep we forced ourselves to endure.

“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man” – Percy Bysshe Shelly

A small reflection on the few and be aware it has been few interactions on discussions pertaining to Germany and the actions of the 1930-1945. In the few occasions where the topic has fallen to WW2 and events that occurred, when Hitler has been mentioned, these things have been spoken of with an odd kind of ease. Slightly similar if you were playing a board game or a sport against a team and caught them cheating, and then the next time you played you mentioned, “hey asshole you cheated last time we played, that was fucked messed up” and they simply replied “yah the coach cheated in that game last time and he is maybe the most hated coach in the world, maybe, and it was, you know, a dark point in our history and yah we used to have lots of players and they had play houses they called synagogues and those jew players were good German jew players but they all left and immigrated to America or were sent to camps and most were killed there, which is bad. Now we remember that bad part of our history, because it is import to remember.” Now change coach with Hitler and remove players and thats a verbatim talk we had with one of the guides. To look at this in a mirror, in the States we have deep seeded racism amongst other things and our own demons with which we struggle, I don’t want to say anything offensive and I’m not making the assumption that Germans are like this, but I kinda feel like some of the people in these cases we’ve talked with don’t really look at the past in that time or the history of it all that badly. The German pride is a real thing it would seem and it is both impressive and beautiful and also terrifying because of what lies just beneath the skin of history. A history that is still visible and incredibly tangible here today.