5.1 May Day

Thanks to the socialist labor laws, May 1st is “May Day” here in Germany. It is a paid holiday, much like our own Labor Day, to honor the workers. Unlike holidays in America, here, on a holiday, it is like a Sunday where all the shops are closed and only restaurants are open.

So for the day off, Team Counts Düsseldorf (minus poor Dexi) took the train to Aachen, Germany. One of Art’s coworkers and his wife live there. They have been to our apartment twice, so we decided to go visit them and let them show us around Aachen. It is a very cute little down. It has these cool gates to the city from way back when it needed protection. We had lunch outside at a place that had ENGLISH MENUS, which is exciting for me. Art got a typical German meal, and took a picture of it. Aachen has many fountains all throughout the city; they even have fountains in the sidewalks for the dogs to drink from. We stopped and looked at a few of them, including one that was like a whirlpool that showed all aspects of the exchange of money (including corruption). Then there was another one, which had all moving parts that you could mess with, with water coming out of many of them. They also have some famous mineral water area where you can soak, but also have the water coming out of fountains for you to drink. It smelled awful, but we gave it a try. I thought it tasted like egg whites. Art was too grossed out to know what it tasted like. He was not expecting it to be warm either. Still, it’s not the best to drink warm water that tastes like eggs. Then we visited an old cathedral, which is pretty famous for Germany. Christof told us the legend behind it. Short version is that the townspeople were building it and ran out of $, so the devil said he would give them the money if he could have the soul of the first one to enter the church after it was done. Unfortunately for the Devil, a wolf was the first one to enter, and the Devil was so angry he ripped the heart out of the wolf, leaving a hole. Then I started to zone out a bit and missed some of the legend, but there is a statue in the foyer of a wolf w/ a hole in the middle where the heart & soul were taken. There is another legend involving the Devil explaining why Aachen has a large, random hill on the outskirts. Short story, the Devil, being angry about the wolf thing, got a huge pile of sand and was going to bury Aachen. He asked a poor woman outside the city how much farther to Aachen, and she, sensing he was the Devil, told him that her old battered shoes were new that morning when she left Aachen, that’s how far she had traveled. The Devil, being frustrated dumped the sand and left it there, and the old woman saved the city. Anyway the cathedral is pretty famous for it’s history –Charlemagne not only built it, but is buried there, and all the German kings had their corronations there, not just the odd legends. Then we went off to have ice creams at an ice cream café. They were wonderful of course, as most exotic ice creams are. By then it was around 4pm, and we were beat, so the three of us hopped the train back home in time for dinner. It was a nice holiday. I felt I needed a vacation from Art’s vacation day!