Fuerth Crime Museum, Foreign Cultures, Fun Concert, and a Complete Surprise!

I didn't intend to do this, but I'm backlogged. Tonight you get two days of blog for the price of one none!

You've never heard of the town where this is located. It's the tower of the old police headquarters in Fuerth. Fuerth is now a part of Nuremberg, but the old police station has been preserved and made into an excellent museum for Nuremberger criminal justice. Sadly, pictures were verboten inside. 

The best view of Fuerth I could get on a rainy day with crowded streets. As you can see, it looks pretty much exactly like Nuremberg.

Back in Nuremberg. As you can see, this stoplight is not for traffic but for a crossing. It makes a lot more sense than crossing guards, actually. Sadly, no Ampelmann. We'll be seeing him in Berlin next week. Oh, you didn't know I'm going to Berlin? Surprise!

Now we're in the Nuremberg Naturgeschichte Museum ("Nicht Nur Knochen und Tote Sachen"). This is an extremely old tree ring taken from the Bavarian Forest, over 2000 years old. See, when we think old, we think 1700s, maybe 1600s if you're familiar with the French and Indian War or a bit earlier if you've studied Indian culture. But here in Europe, stuff is older than the stuff that's older than the stuff that's older than the oldest dirt you can find, to stretch the saying to its absolute limit.

The museum also houses an active archaeological and general scientific society, established, as this plaque indicates, in 1801.

It rained, and the steps out of the U-Bahn were slippery. So of course, I fell flat on my face...er, knee. I laughed it off, but my leg looked pretty stupid for the rest of the day.

Model of a Pacific Islands catamaran, part of the exhibition we went through on tribal and nomadic cultures throughout the world.

More catamarans. I love models, as you know. So does Tobias.

Some absolutely wicked-looking spears. I hope I never end up in a fight with someone wielding these.

Traditional fishing tackle, again from the Pacific. Amazing how these fishermen, completely separated from all the other fishing cultures (China, Korea, Japan, Europe, the Mediterranean) have developed tools pretty much identical to the ones in my tackle box: jigs, spoons, plugs, snelled hooks, and various thicknesses of line.

Some rather striking totems, for more reasons than their craftsmanship and style. Ron Jeremy is jealous.

More idols. Yes, those are real skulls.

Stunning recreation of a tent pitched along the silk road.

Several implements showing the ancient process (which is used to this day, albeit with fancier equipment) of extracting salt.

A neat collection of West African instruments.

An incredibly lifelike bearskin (which, considering this is a natural history museum primarily, might well be authentic) in a recreation of an Inuit dwelling.

The depiction of Inuits as very Asiatic is accurate. The prevailing theory is that a so-called "land bridge" once connected what are  now Russia and Alaska, allowing ancient hunters and gatherers to follow herds of mammoth and the like across to the Americas. In fact, if this theory is true, then it explains the existence of all humans, not just Inuits, on a continent half a world away from the original source of early Man's migration in Central Africa. The Inuits' ancestors simply stayed put.

First of two views of the Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof. It's a pretty imposing structure considering what it is, but this is Germany, after all, where building enormous Gothic structures designed to make peasants soil their pants is more or less a national pastime.

Looking wider, it's a bit ridiculous. Without knowing ahead of time, you would assume this building to be some kind of governmental structure, like a legislature, court, or Rathaus. But no, it's a train station. And hilariously, the interior doesn't match at all: it's a freakin' shopping mall, complete with stands selling knock-off watches, and it's all very modern. If I wasn't in such a hurry, I would have bust my gut laughing.

I swear, this was taken in the same building shown above.

German Word of the Day / Deutsches Wort des Tages
der Polizist :: police officer
Als Kapitaen jemand gefressen hat, wurde einen Polizisten angeruft.
A police officer was called when Kirk devoured someone.

Moving on to the day you're reading this, Happy Independence Day! But for me, it was back to school on Monday. The highlight of my day was a fabulous concert whose program you will see shortly. But first, when Jonas was asked to go to the supermarket and buy some groceries, I couldn't resist the opportunity to try and find some non-sparkling water. If you've been to Germany, you already know this, but here, there is virtually no such thing as a flat drink. Everything but milk and alcohol is carbonated, including water, juice, lemonade (which tastes more like dilute Sprite), and soda. Thankfully, I did manage to find some "normal" water at said supermarket.

I know this is true in certain places here too, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that you can buy beer at the supermarket. The stereotype of Germans loving beer started for a reason--they do. But based on the low drinking age (16, before you're allowed to drive a car!) there's a point to be made here: the reason Germans love beer and the reason college students love it seem, in general, to be quite different. The sense I get is that Germans enjoy the flavor, the warmth, and the inevitable companionship of the drink, rather than the aftereffects. There is a difference between enjoying alcohol and enjoying drunkenness, and while there's undoubtedly plenty of the latter too (where isn't there?), it seems the mindset is mostly the former. This is a topic I have interest in, considering how huge a part of the culture it is, so you'll be hearing more of my research later.

The concert was outdoors, on grass so low it could be played as fairway. There was a lovely picnic atmosphere about, like the feeling at a minor league baseball game. It wasn't as casual as a rock concert would be (though there was just as much beer about), but it wasn't nearly as formal as I had dressed in preparation for. My polo and slacks felt a little out of place among the proliferation of jeans, hoodies, and long-sleeved T-shirts, but I didn't care.

The program. As you can see, it's quite a mix. It's also not totally accurate. Instead of playing whatever the "Wild Girl Overture," they changed the program and did a nice medley of all the songs from "The Sound of Music." When I pointed it out to my host family, sitting next to me, they didn't know what I was talking about. Apparently, The Sound of Music isn't as popular in Germany as it is here. Or maybe my host family just isn't into musical theatre.

As the park slowly filled, so did this hot air balloon, whose purpose seemed simply to be there. Since the concert was called "Berlin, Paris, New York," the joke was that they were taking off for New York. Hey, if you're in the area, let me know if you see it. ;)

The balloon, ready for takeoff. Sadly, tall people were a constant hazard in these photos, so forgive the random out-of-focus foreground guy.

Against a clear blue sky, the bright red and white balloon (bearing the logo of Sparkasse Nuremberg, a local bank that sponsored the event) made for a lovely photo.

Cass changed her clothes after every couple songs. No idea why.

Even though her English sounded rather silly through her thick German accent, the singer was pretty good. She was the soloist on about half the songs in the performance. I don't know if she's famous--her name is Carry Cass if you care enough to look her up.

She really got into the act, hamming it up all the way through the show tunes. It was a lot of fun to watch her sing "Mack the Knife" and "I Am What I Am" in German, and even more fun to hear the audience singing along. 

The purpose of the concert (and the reason it was in the rather out-of-the-way location of Roethenbach) was to celebrate the 700th birthday of the town. Pretty impressive, I must say.

As the summer sun set late on the horizon, the trees were silhouetted nicely against a moody sky.

When I realized they were going to play the Can Can, I knew it would be worth filming. You haven't lived until you've clapped along to this song in an outdoor theater with two hundred Germans.

I was delighted that some of the audience brought sparklers. Yay, fireworks on the Fourth of July!

I took about 20 of these, experimenting with different settings. The ones you see are the ones that turned out best.

They didn't look like that, of course. That's the result of the "fireworks" feature on my camera, which enhances motion trails of bright stuff. I've never used it before, and it works nicely.

In a moment that has made three top five lists in my life, the audience asked for an encore and got two. The first was predictable: "No Business Like Show Business" (again rendered hilariously with Cass' accent). The second, pleasingly and far less predictably, was a lively rendition of Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever", which is in a four-way tie with "The Liberty Bell", "Badenweiler March," and "Brighton Beach" for my favorite march ever. As if that weren't cool enough, they followed it up and closed out the evening with a fireworks show, which I was quick enough with the camera to record. The aforementioned lists this moment reached include the following: Patriotic Moments (#4, behind watching the Constitution fire her guns, the Boston fireworks show with a background of patriotic music, and a live, in-character reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the National Archives), Fireworks shows (#4, behind Boston, Washington DC, and Yorktown), and surprises (#3, behind going to a Roger Waters concert without knowing it until I got there--with a backstage pass, no less--and winning this trip in the first place). And, yes, I saw fireworks before you did. :D

German Word of the Day / Deutsches Wort des Tages

unverzichtbar :: inalienable

Der 4. Juli ist nicht nur fur die Vereinigten Stadten wichtig, aber doch fuer das ganze Welt; es war das erste mal in der Geschichte, dass eine Stadt anerkannt Freiheit als unverzichtbare Recht.

The Fourth of July is not only important for the United States, but for the whole world; it was the first time in history that a state recognized freedom as an inalienable right.