Day 2 - It was a Graveyard Smash!

So…it turned out the baby storks may have flown the coop, but the big storks were still there! We started to walk up to the village center and I looked up and there they were! It was so exciting. Later I saw them fly into the nest. And Jane had told me that they make a clacking sound, and I was sitting on her balcony when I heard it. It is very distinctive.

There was a little Markt in the village – 2 or 3 cheese sellers, 2 vegetable sellers, a flower seller and a honey seller. We bought a bunch of cheese, olives, bread and other stuff (cheese-stuffed peppers, stuffed grape leaves, 2 kinds of olive tapenade) and the woman at the stand threw in a couple of containers of stuff. There is also a really weird fountain in the square, I took a picture of it. We went to a little grocery store and I got a pretty card to send to Aunt Bea. Also went into a book store where I guessed at the titles.

After we got back, Big G dropped by to give us the gift that keeps on giving – a tiny dead mole. G was so proud. He came in, let us fuss over him for a minute, then went right outside to the balcony and sat by his mole until we came out to admire it and him.

We drove over to Freiberg to the oldest cemetery in Freiberg (the Alter Friedhof.) It was bigger than it looked from the outside, completely walled, with a plain-looking (from the outside) chapel. We couldn’t go in the chapel, but we peaked in the windows and it looked beautiful. Many of the gravestones were pretty crumbly, but they were very interesting, dating back to the 1700s and into the 1800s, I don’t remember anything newer.

There was a gravestone which said, "General A.B.L. Riquetti, Vicomte de Mirabeau, with a date of 1792." When I got back from the trip, I looked him up and found out he was a leader in the French Revolution, fought against the British in the American Revolutionary War, was nicknamed "Barrel Mirabeau" because of his corpulence (due to drink and died of either apoplexy or a duel in Freiburg! You can read more about him by clicking on his name in the "Links" section.

Many of the gravestones were "weird-scary-weird," with lots of skulls, caskets, skeletons and other creepy symbolism. There were also graves in the wall which surrounded the cemetery. There was a monument, not really a grave, which looked just like the top of the Munster.

We sat on a bench and had a picnic of our Markt cheeses, bread and some wine. As we sat there an picnicked, once in a while people would come along the cross walk and start to turn down the path where we were picnicking. Each and every one took one look and changed their minds. Hunh. On our way out of the cemetery we saw an interesting tree - it was a huge tree, and it was completely fallen, and yet it was still alive, with branches growing out of it. There was a plaque in front of it. The plaque indicated that a level 12 gale-force wind toppled the tree in 1999. The plaque also held a quotation from Job as follows:

"At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail."

(Job 1, 14:7)

Then (Mom would be proud) we drove over to Freiberg’s biggest cemetery. It’s much newer but the graves did go back to the early 1900s. It's called the Hauptfriedof (Main Cemetery). There was an entire section of WWI graves. Another area is dedicated to the people who were killed in the air-raids on Freiberg. There is a WWII section too.

The graves here go up to the present time and are incredibly well cared for. The flowers were fantastic. We saw impatiens, deep red, the size of chrysanthemums. The cemetery is huge, and contains the graves of many Freiberg notables, and we saw one grave of a Nobel prize winner. There were gorgeous sculptures. There was one gravestone in the shape of a donut. (Mmmmm...donuts....) We walked in there for a long time. Jane noticed that in many of the very well-kept graves there were markers from grave-tending companies. She didn't think that was right, that they should advertise on the graves, so she picked them out and put them on graves that were in ratty shape.

Then we hit a major grocery store – it used to be WalMart when Pat & the kids & I were here – all we picked up was 2 bars of chocolate and a bag of fruit & nuts. I did pick up some Germany grocery lists - I continued to do this, as is my habit, throughout my stay. I am looking for the German equivalent of the grocery list I found in the U.S. one time. One of the items listed was "fucking rolls." Jane sometimes sends me lists she finds in German grocery carts. She writes "fucking sauerkraut" on them. I actually got so I could read most of the grocery lists I found. After all, I speak several languages, as long as they use only food words.

Came home and ate baked cheese with jam, leftover sauerkraut stuff with chocolate for dessert while we watched a movie.

BTW, we were expecting Mike to be in tomorrow, but we got a panic IM from him yesterday – he took a look at his passport and it was EXPIRED! He has an emergency appointment to get a new one (I guess he told them he was needed on urgent space business) but we won’t see him until Thursday of next week. Poor little chucklehead. Jane had to call his hotel and make new arrangements. So I will be all by my lonesome in Heidelberg for a few days next week. Jane says everyone speaks-a-da-English so I guess I’ll make out all right. The gardens by the castle are said to be beautiful…I’ll bring my book and chill out. I could use some chillin’ out, I’ll be honest whicha.

I miss my kitten something awful, but I got major mojo from G this morning – Jane put him on my bed and he immediately made himself at home between my legs. He is perfect in every way. Meantime, the gorillas upstairs have been sawing, hammering, screaming and moving furniture since o’dark thirty.

More tomorrow. We be headed out to the PO, then to Freiberg’s Munsterplatz Markt, then this eve to a festival at a nearby village.