Life: Idiotropic

Won't it ever stop raining????? It's going on two full weeks of almost non-stop rain and we are all quite sick of it. It's gotten cold too. Kirk is almost considering turning the heat on. It is green here though - and beautiful, so I shouldn't complain too much.

Friday I tried to take Dad and Angie to good ol' downtown GK to walk around the open market and go to my favorite cafe. It rained. It rained a lot and it was cold and parking was awful, and we had the kids, so we had to walk far, and it was windy and miserable... Do I sound like a whiny 4-year old yet? I think that's about how we all felt. I was trying to show my guest around, but I think it was more like torture. They were miserable and the kids were too. The consolation was cappuccino and good cake at Cafe Shleypen. That will perk anyone up. I had my favorite - Johanisbeeren Kase torte. I think it's logan berry. It's really good. Anyway... that was the extent of the Friday outing. The cold/wet stuff is getting to everyone.


Saturday we got a late start and the weather looked iffy, so we just took a quick trip to Aachen to see the basics of the centrum... the old Rathaus and the Palatine Chapel. The weather was ok and it felt good to be out. I'd been to the Dom before, but we walked around inside more this time and took more pictures. The entire ceiling is a very detailed mosaic and the designs creep down the walls too. It's amazing. A lot of the tiny tiles sparkle in the lighting. The windows are beautiful and in the front are several large gold carved things. It's pretty impressive. Charlemagne actually ruled from this cathedral. His throne is there. He's still buried there. When we walked in, we noticed a door closed off to the side. Looking through the windows we could see a baptism going on. It was very sweet and so amazing to see that tiny baby all dressed in white in such a historic and regal place.

After we walked around inside, we went to the Treasury of the Cathedral which is the largest north of the Alps. It had a intricately carved marble sarcophagus dating from 2nd century A.D. from Rome that once contained Charlemagne. It had a golden bust of Charlemagne, his hunting knife and many other things relating to him. The cross of Lothair was amazing - beautiful gold decorated with stones and pearls and filigree with intricate engravings in gold. What amazes me most is that it's still used! It sits on display in the museum, but for special processions, they remove it and use it to head processions. It's also placed next to the main alter during holy mass on high feast days. It was made in the 900's A.D. and is so valuable. It is phenomenal to me - and it makes it even more special - that it is still used.

In one room full of paintings relating to Christ and Mary, there were panels like the one below depicting Mary's life. It began the angel coming to her and telling her of her pregnancy and ended with her standing at the cross. It's the first time that I saw Mary's grief depicted so clearly. As she stood at the cross looking at Christ, she held a spear to herself. As a mom, I can only imagine how painful it must feel to watch your child die. The three reliqueries below hold some of Aachen's old relics. One contains Mary's belt. And the other two have Christ's belt and his flogging belt. Every seven years in Aachen, there is a great pilgrimage that started in 1349. During the event, the Virgin's Shrine is opened and 4 more holy relics including Mary's dress and Christ's swaddling clothes are displayed for a time. It's quite an elaborate event. We hope to attend next year. Again, the dates on these things are just amazing. My kids can't seem to keep a white shirt clean for more than an hour and here there are belts and clothes and art that are a couple thousand years old.











After a lot of "quiet time" walking through the cathedral and the museum, we all needed a snack and an opportunity to talk in normal voices... especially the little ones. So, we all headed over to Starbucks for a coffee and a snack. Arianna and Luci LOVED helping their grandpa finish off his frappuccino. It was cold and chocolatey. I think that was their favorite part of the day. Afterwards while I shopped for some Printen cookies, the girls played on some horse statues. We've noticed horse statues all over the area... all painted differently... like the pigs in Seattle or the Buffalo in Oklahoma City. It's interesting. I would not have expected that phenomenon here.
The guys took the kids to play at the big slide by the parking place while Angie and I ducked into a couple of shops. The kids love the big slide. It's really tall and fast!










Just as Angie and I were about to walk back to meet up with everyone else, we heard music, so we headed off in the other direction to see what it was. We were too late to get photos, but a wedding caravan had stopped right in the middle of the street and the bride, groom, and bridal party all got out of their cars and started dancing. It was a Turkish wedding. The music was fun and they did the traditional dance, then all jumped back into the cars and sped off. I hope to see something like that again when I can take pictures. It was really fun to see.

When we got home from Aachen, our street was flooded. We were really lucky we could still get to our driveway. A few minutes after we arrived, more emergency vehicles came up and blocked our driveway. A water pipe broke and created a lake just a block down the street. So, we had no water. No toilet flushing, no cooking, no cleaning... The positive is that they did come and fix it fairly quickly and by bedtime our water was on again. The kids enjoyed watching the workers from the playroom window. So, the pipe was fixed in a matter of hours... during the rain... but the sidewalk didn't get repaired for another week.