This is being written in a small cybercafé in Rothenburg, or to be
precise, "Planet Internet" in
Rothenburg om der Tauber. Throbbing techno is an audio distraction, but
there's only a few people scattered throughout this storefront operation,
and unlike a lot of the people out in the street, they're all speaking
Deutsch. Not sure how to characterize the decor here, pale blond chairs and
tables with "Belinea" computers and those "Stuvyesant" blue glass ashtrays.
Last night & this morning I've been hanging around this wonderfully medieval
town's central square, where groups of tourists congregate. Lots of English spoken
there - Japanese and French, too. The encircling wall is almost entirely intact,
and you can walk around atop it - several towers punctuate the battlements, which
are all covered.
My journey's environment has been growing ever-medieval - Düsseldorf totally
contemporary; Frankfurt surprisingly had a few historical districts; then
Würzburg, with its Prince-Bishop's Residenz, tram network, and the Festung
up on the hill; and now Rothenburg, a little town, completely period and
authentic (well, firebombed in '45, but rebuilt quick). It's great fun wandering
around, streets too narrow for most automobile traffic. There's
two elements of hinky associated with Rothenburg - first is a local pastry, the
second a legend. All the bakeries here are pushing "Schneeball" - near as I can
tell, they take great wads of strüdel dough & toss them into the deep-fat fryer,
then dust 'em with cinnamon or dip 'em in chocolate, etc. The legend is that in
1631, ex-Mayor Nusch saved the town from destruction when General Tilly ordered
him to drink "almost" 3/4 of a gallon of wine in a single draught. The clock in
the central square depicts this feat.
The new stuff from Europe: the new eye-catching element they're using here is a
some very bright projected white light-source. Sometimes it's strobing, sometimes
it's constant and beamed through a stencil, but it's that same ghostly color white
as lightning or a strobe-light's xenon flash. Examples I've seen: a logo flickering
on an interior wall's upper surface, pulsating into the leaves of trees over a
café and beamed down onto the sidewalk along a department store, from
sources in the upper frames of their display windows. (These were static, city
names, something to do with the fashions on sale.) I'm wondering if it's the same
technology I see in what I call the blue headlights
seen on high-end cars in California, HID lighting, which uses xenon too.
SHOE UPDATE
Feet are doing fine. However these cheap "Gorilla" boots (which I bought out in
the Valley, on Ventura Boulevard) are beginning to self-destruct, and I need 'em
on these cobblestones. Meanwhile the Puma running shoes are beginning to induce
blisters in some odd places so I'm laying off them, too - may be how they're
showing their age. The boots should last to the trip's end, though.
I've been listening to Voice Of America (VOA) on my short-wave radio - soon I'll
write a paragraph comparing them with National Public Radio. I'd like to do a real article
sometime, with contrasting interviews between the Washington, DC based employees of
both organizations. VOA cannot be received in the hometown, and who listens to
short-wave anyway?