the world has turned and left me here

Nuremburg, Rothenburg

Met Martina in Nuremburg this weekend for the Christkindlmarkt, as she's kind of a local, having grown up nearby. It was a cold, rainy day, but this made the smells of Gluh-Wein (spiced red wine served hot) and Lebkuchen (a sort of gingerbread) coming from the stands seem that much more appealing. Both are Nuremburg specialties that, for many Germans, stand for Christmas.

To escape from the cold we went to the German National Museum at the south end of town. They had a decent collection of Durer and a famous Rembrandt self-portrait that I was surprised to recognize, but by far the highlight was the two-foot-high unidentified gold-plated object shaped like a missile. Some speculated that it was a hat worn in religious ceremonies, but honestly, it was rather obscene-looking and would have fit in just as well in the window of a Beate Uhse. It was anyone's guess. The surprising thing was that such an object would appear encased in glass under the blessing of a national museum.

We saw the second Harry Potter movie in the evening in what Martina informed me was Europe's largest cinema complex. We were both a little disappointed by it, though maybe for different reasons.

Sunday the weather was better. We drove to Rothenburg, an even better-preserved town than the pretty authentic Nuremburg. Rothenburg has an intact city wall over a mile long almost all the way around it. No cars are allowed inside the wall, and the houses are of the half-timber pointy-roofed variety that is probably summoned up when you think of a medieval village. Despite this--or rather because of it--Rothenburg is a bit of a tourist trap. There were a lot of tourists crowding the streets, and stone blocks bearing the names of Japanese donors in the city wall confirmed the impression. Okay maybe tourist trap is a bit of a misnomer...particularly if you use the cashed-out land of Wall Drug and Jesse James' Hideout as a frame of reference.

While in Rothenburg we visited the Medieval Criminal Museum, which sported a comprehensive collection of torture devices ranging from tongue-screws to chastity belts to iron maidens. For some reason I thought chastity belts were just a saying with no reality behind them, but in fact they do exist, and even have locks on them, to which paranoid husbands would pocket the key. There were of course a wide variety of executioner's swords and axes, but there was one form of execution that I had never heard of before: the lying victim was run over repeatedly by a wagon wheel, breaking his bones through sheer weight, or slicing him with a blade attached to the rim, or both. They saved this one for only the most serious offenders (usually murderers). Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed that severe in a society that plunged bakers into the river in a spiked cage for selling underweight loaves of bread.

Well, after some of the usual nonsense, Martina and I ate snowballs, a Rothenburg specialty made from strips of dough molded into a ball and covered with powdered sugar or chocolate. Then it was time to say goodbye, as Martina had to get back to KL before another work week began, and I had to go home an run myself over with some more with the wagon wheel of programming.