The Sacred Cow Landscape Story

This is one of those stories that requires an introduction of sorts.

You see....here in Europe....McDonalds is fairly aggressive.  They come up every couple of months and introduce a new gimmick burger.  It stays around for a couple of months....gets lots of commercial action....goes through a period of growth and peak, then gets retired.

Yeah, we've gone through the Mexican era, the Chinese era, the Texas era, and at least twenty other gimmick burger periods.

So we are up to the Gran Chianina period.  Now a normal guy would stop you at this point, and ask what the heck is Gran Chianina?

Well....it's a cow that only grows in the Tuscany area of Italy....the hilly area which is known for four-star agriculture and delicious beef.

The Chianina cow is a white cow....one of the tallest and biggest of any breed in the world.  Chianina cows are the type that love hot weather, and generally are mild in attitude (they aren't like those aggressive types that would chase you from field to field in Bama).  Italians will generally tell you that it's fine beef for steaks.

The gimmick here?  Well....McDonalds is spending a fair amount of money....buying up a bunch of Chianina cattle, and sending them off to be burgers.  No one is saying much from the rancher or farmer side in Tuscany.  Beef is beef.  If someone wanted to use their fancy cattle for hamburger....well....it's acceptable.

All of this means some fancy burger.  This would include some kinda of nut sauce (don't ask), some lettuce, some fancy cheese (not the cheap stuff), and onion rings.  It's a big burger....so you pay more than the traditional amount for it.

All of this leads around to advertising of course, and there....is where the issue of this blog will discuss.

What McDonalds envisoned....was a simple 30-second ad on TV, with rolling hills of Tuscany in the background....maybe some white Chianina cows standing there by a tree, and some fancy music in the background.

Well, the Tuscany political folks got all peppy.  You can't be using pictures and images of Tuscany.....in a McDonalds ad.

You see, this area of Tuscany is a UNESCO protected area.  It was identified and granted this special status as a world heritage area.  This, by UNESCO rules, means you need to control the use of images and pictures in magazines, newspapers, and TV.

Naturally, McDonalds didn't ask permission to use pictures from Tuscany.

Most folks would kinda sit back and chuckle at this point.  If you took a picture of some Tuscany tree, and yourself....using the image for your pickle store in Texas....you'd be in trouble.

Tuscany political figures are all over this.  They quote this rule and that rule.....and how this is supposed to work.  Generally, there's some gimmick pay-off in the UNESCO game book.  You'd relieve yourself of money, paying some lawyer, who'd pay some political fee, and it'd all be stamped 'approved'.

Presently?  It looks like some lawyers will contact McDonalds, and then some other lawyers will play this out.  The Chianina cow burger ad?  Well....it'd likely run for two months and then just start to disappear.  The burger would be retired by early spring....replaced by some other burger (the Montana burger, or the French burger, or the Thai burger).

Whether the lawyers keep arguing into summer of 2014 or beyond would be a question I'd be curious about.

All of this brings me to this worry.  A guy could go and take some video and pictures in Tuscany....just rolling hills....public scenes.  Then he'd use them in some gimmick ad, and get into all kinds of trouble.  If you ask me....the Tuscany guys are just making their own territory into a lawyer-zone, and aiming to sue folks for some gimmick image status.  In this case, it's not the sacred cow that got folks into the trouble...it's the sacred landscape.

A Site in Wiesbaden to See

On a quiet day in the fall....when you've got enthusiasm to walk a piece in Wiesbaden.....about two blocks west of the Bahnhof is Mosbacher Strasse.  Just a few hundred feet down the street is the Lutheran Church of Wiesbaden.

It was built around 1910....a couple of years prior to WW I.

It was designed by Friedrich Putzer....who strangely enough had this reputation in church architecture.   In his late 30's...he put the plan on the table for the church.

There are four Lutheran churches within the city limits of Wiesbaden.  If you take an extended walk around west end of the train station area.....you tend to notice upscale houses which date back to the late 1880-1900 period.  One can only imagine that enough influence drew itself to this suburb in that time period, and the church folks figured they needed an impressive site.

It's about a block away from city hall.  It's worth a walk.....just don't get over excited.  Those Lutheran folks weren't into dynamic structures....like the Catholic folks.

The North Korean Mention in German News

Today, we kinda learned that several countries.....not just the NSA crowd....were listening in on Chancellor Merkel's private phone calls.  The Chinese, the Russians, the British, and the North Koreans.

A pause here....the North Koreans?  Yeah.  What's the deal?  Well...it's an interesting episode.

In Berlin, there's the headquarters of the CDU folks (Merkel's political party).  It's a nice building.....down at the bottom of Klingelhoferstrasse.  It's just a block or two south of the big city park.

Behind the CDU building, which is a mighty impressive building (I've seen it).....about half a kilometer away to the west.....is the North Korean embassy.  It's on a major street.....although there's only a handful of embassy operations in this part of Berlin.

So, its within easy reception range of the CDU party headquarters.  The odds that they know that the Koreans have some fancy gadgets?  It's probably better than a fifty-fifty shot that the German intelligence guys have guessed what's going on, and warned the CDU folks about this.

What does the North Korean government get?  It's hard to say.  Probably a number of pieces of gossip over some guy's wife getting a boob job.....maybe some French guy paying off a CDU guy with a pallet of wine.....maybe some low-level CDU involved in a relationship with a Dutch trampy gal.  It's only a guess.

My humble guess is that the North Korean guys reach a point each month where there's just not much to report of substance, and they start to make up stuff.....reporting it back to North Korea.  The head guy gets all peppy....finding out about some imaginary affairs of some secretary.  Maybe there's some fake story made up over big scandals.  And along the way.....someone hints of something big happening next year.

All this stuff....fake or real....helps keep the North Korean guys in business, and stationed in Berlin....which is paradise, when compared to North Korea.  A guy sips real German beer.....eats fatty wurst....and glances at some hot lusty German gals in halter tops and short skirts.  It's not a bad deal.

As for German reaction?  Well....where exactly is the great fury that you had with the lousy NSA guys listening in on the Chancellor's phone?  Will we have to sit for a week and hear nightly updates about the terrible North Koreans?  Will someone from the German foreign office call the North Koreans over and jump over the poor guy for disrespectful listening?  Will German state-run TV run a twenty minute special with classic music accompanying each scene change of a dramatic nature (like some kind of lurking theme song from the Dracula series)?

Yes, we will probably just skip all of that.  It was the awful Americans a month ago.....but the Germans just can't bring themselves to get all peppy about the awful North Koreans.  Tonight's news highlight?  Probably a soccer game, or some dead pigs from a overturned truck, or a discussion over gimmicked discount prices at some grocery chain.  Maybe that Ed Snowden guy will get peppy and talk up the evil Americans one more time.

The Long Trail for the American Arms Hotel in Wiesbaden

Once the US Army built the new hotel complex....the old American Arms hotel down on Frankfurter Strasse was set to close.  It was a guaranteed deal.  The Army asked around....to see if any further use could be made.  None.....so they started the process of turning over the property.

Deals like this....are million-Euro deals....for the city of Wiesbaden.

You see....there's also a second property....over in Mainz-Kastel (the suburb of Wiesbaden to the southeast, along the river).  Both amount to big expansion plays for real estate players, and the city planners.

Well....the court system has gotten involved, and noted that there is a process for handling this kind of stuff, and it will be used.  The mayor of Wiesbaden is still in the middle of the process.....but any hope of his to run this in a new and different manner?  Gone.

The anticipated outcomes?  The American Arms hotel is in decent shape and would make for decent student housing....or at least the Wiesbaden Kurier newspaper is reporting this.  No, we don't have a university in town.....but there are various schools, and the business university (a private deal).  So folks are leaning toward keeping the building standing.  Note, parking just isn't something that you'd brag about with the American Arms complex.  And rebranding it?  I'd expect some naming convention to come up....honoring some Wiesbaden cultural figure.

The Mainz-Kastel property?  The hint is that it'll be mostly torn down and rebuilt....residential properties of some sort.

The mess left here?  Well....the US Army said....as part of the acceptance process....they want no additional costs.  The court is surveying this, and likely to call in a big toxic waste inspection.  Episodes like this....usually turn into a five-year period where tests are done, redone, and results become a topic for discussion.  It's not concluded as final....until the court signs off.

I'd take a humble guess here....that the old Wiesbaden Arms hotel....stays mostly empty and useless.....until 2018 at the earliest.  The Kastel site might take another three or four years past that point.

For Americans who traveled through the area, and knew both sites....it's a bit of interest, and maybe a bit of comedy.  A simple process....simply doesn't exist.  

My Mall Trip

I spent a couple of hours yesterday at the Main Taunus Centrum in Frankfurt.  If you are driving up A66, it's on the left of the road....opposite of the city.

I'd describe it as a mall....but slightly different.  You park, and take the elevator to the walking around....all outside....and survey roughly eighty stores and shops.

Gift shopping?  This is probably the type of mall where you will find what you want...from the strange to the practical.

Spending cash?   Well....it's slightly above upscale.

There's plenty of shops for coffee and cake, or an afternoon meal.

I'd allow myself at least four hours to make the walk.

Some notes.  This is not in Frankfurt....it's along the autobahn to the west of town.  No, you can't get there by S-Bahn....but the bus from the train station does run out there.  Most folks drive into it.

Parking?  It's a strange episode.  No massive parking lots.  Everyone parks on the roof of the mall....two levels.  So you enter a ramp and go up to the fourth floor, and park there.  You might want to remember the area of the roof where you parked for later reference.  No cost for parking.

Worth the trip?  My advice is if you need a couple of gifts.....you will find something for everyone in this mall.  Bring your walking shoes, and a jacket (it is mostly outdoors for the walking part of this).

Chocolate Holiday

The Christmas period in Germany....kinda means chocolate goes to the front of advertising.  Every shop....every grocery....every speciality show that dabbles in the chocolate trade....knows that November and December are key months to seize on sales and profits.

A kid could kill himself on the amount of chocolate that the parents allow, then the grandparents, then the neighbors, on and on and on.

This was the scene from yesterday and a visit to the mall in Frankfurt.

Officially A Spa City?

UNESCO's World Heritage organization is in the news this week.

This is the group that defines something of international heritage.....then gives them a "label".  The Pyramids in Egypt fit for the title.  Various national forests and sites fall onto the list.  UNESCO eventually got around to putting cities on the World Heritage list.

This week....folks in Wiesbaden found that their town is working up this idea of putting the city on this list.....well....at least applying.  The deal?  They would be a world-class spa city.

Yeah, you can kinda envision this title.....the category....and question the value.

If you asked most folks around town if this really mattered.....I suspect that you'd find ninety percent shaking their head.  A world-class spa city.....isn't something that you think of Wiesbaden being.

There's some doubt if this gimmick will work and there's some other worldly cities aiming at the same title.

How would it affect Wiesbaden?  Tour operators, hotel operations, and the Casino crowd....would all have a fresh new identifier for their ad displays.  The guys who do the wine empires in Eltville?  Same deal.  The cruises on the Rhein?  Same deal.  The upscale restaurants in town?  Same deal.

Each would claim that they generated an ounce or two more profit.....with this UNESCO title of world-class spa city.

Around two thousand years ago.....Wiesbaden was nothing.  A couple of farmers on the side of the river....growing some grapes....making wine....and enjoying the hot springs of the local area.  A couple of Romans came by....noted the fine food, fine wine, and relaxing atmosphere of the springs.  They kinda stayed for a while.

Over the next thousand years.....Wiesbaden quietly took in the more wealthy of folks.  It was a place where someone would claim health aspects from the springs and the wine.

It was a gimmick, that worked over and over.  The locals made money, and enjoyed growth without industry.  Today?  Saudis fly into Frankfurt and enjoy the comforts of Wiesbaden.  Rich businessmen from Russia fly in, and spend days making deals in the comfort of the city.  Wall Street bankers arrive and find connections to deals, while resting comfortably and enjoying the local atmosphere.

Maybe this UNESCO title means something.  But if you ask me....they already got their "status", and this UN thing might be a waste of time.

The Tax and the Trend

This is one of those German stories that takes some explaining.

Around three years ago....the German environmental folks and the German political folks came to this mutual understanding.  They would create a airline carbon tax.  Short distance trips would run around 7.50 Euro ($8.50 roughly).  The long-haul trips (to the US, China, Japan, etc) would be 42 Euro ($50). 

The general feeling was that it would show Germany more in a positive light for environmental policies.  Fixing the carbon issue?  Well....no scientist has ever shown any data that a minor tax changes anything to carbon or pollution....but facts like this generally don't matter.  People travel....people pay....and the general cost to living escalates.

The airline industry wasn't happy, but they had little choice on the matter.

So days, weeks and months passed.  An interesting episode is unfolding right now.  Chancellor Merkel is preparing to consolidate the new government of Germany, and she wants the carbon tax on airlines tossed.  She says....it has not shown any evidence of fixing anything, and there is a report by the airline industry showing almost half-a-billion in lost revenue for German flights.

What happened to the lost revenue.  This is a curious episode.  The airlines noted the German rules.  Short flight out to Copenhagen, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Lux City, and Brussels (along with dozens of others)....had the 7.50 Euro tax.  So the international airlines realized that using those other hubs created a way around the tax.

You got on a KVM flight in Frankfurt, traveling to Amsterdam where you'd sit for two hours, and then fly onto Philly or Denver.  The long-distance tax was not a player in this game because you weren't using the Frankfurt airport to fly direct to Denver or Philly.

The hubs outside of Germany....quietly added a couple of extra flights each week.  The big airports of Germany (Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich, Koln, Hamburg)?  They kinda hit their peak two years ago.  Localized flights to the hubs jumped a small bit.....helping to move the German passengers out of the tax zone.....to a better deal.

Now, I admit.....some folks are picky about this and want absolute direct flights.  So they paid the tax and just accepted the gimmick.  Others?  They were going to waste an extra four to ten hours.....saving forty-odd Euro in taxes.

You can sense here.....there's some problems.

Some countries in Europe have added various fees and carbon-related taxes....so the game is on a continual change of pace.  Some move up.....some move back.

Added to this mess....is the EU tax on carbon being discussed.  The executive committee of the EU....wants an across-the-board carbon tax.  It'd basically force each state in Europe to accept the gimmick tax that they set.  The airline industry would be unable to shift out of this.  The talk indicates that it'll come up in 2014, and probably be debated to a serious extent.  Passage?  Unknown.

Around forty years ago.....most all air travel was expensive, and was not typically the choice of most folks in traveling.  If you had to go to Rome or Spain.....you either drove, went by bus, or by rail.  The countries and airlines eventually realized methods and gimmicks to bring the cost of air-travel down.  Today?  We basically have hit rock bottom on prices, but now facing new gimmicks and methods to push the tickets back up.....where fewer people will utilize the service.

Naive bureaucrats generally write white-papers over tactics and strategy like this.    Few ever understand business concerns, or the people they represent.

So I'll make a simple prediction.  Carbon taxes come up and pass via the EU....so the Chancellor's game is only short-lived.  By 2023, most all long-travel tickets will have a hundred Euro carbon tax tied to them.

Eventually.....someone will figure out that it's cheaper....to drive a bus all the way to Rome, than it is to fly a plane down.  The Bureaucrats will wake up by 2028, and realize that they've now created a new problem.....people wanting to travel more cheaply....thus avoiding the airline industry.

It's like tinkering with a car engine, and never being sure how the timing was originally.....but you just accept a badly running car from that point on.

The Pill Culture

There's an article over at the Frankfurter Allgemine newspaper today, which lays out this curious episode of anti-depressant pills.  Basically, some smart guys over at OECD....the European Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.....studied the use of the pills on modern society in Germany and Europe itself.

Ever since the economic stumble of 2007/2008.....the anti-depressant pill rate has soared.  Spain and Portugal both are using at least twenty-percent more....than they were five years ago.

For Germans?  The rate is currently figured around fifty Germans per each 1,000 residents....are doing some type of anti-depressant.  In Iceland....which is way ahead of the rest of Europe....it's around 106 out of a thousand residents.

The reasoning given here?  Well....the hint is that doctors now are more likely to recognize mental illness, and there's no stigma today....compared to a decade ago.  It's hard to say if there is such concrete evidence of "acceptance" going on, or if doctors have simply found the easiest trick to make consumers happy....at least for the time being.

Doped up?  Germans tend to talk a good bit about work-stress.  My humble opinion is that they tend to take everything at work fairly serious, and don't screw around or have a moment of humor at work.  Yearly, they go to the doctor and whine about being stressed out.  Eventually, the doctor prescribes some anti-depressant.  So starts a trend.

The question would be....by 2018....five years in the future....will Germans have doubled the use of anti-depressants?  My humble guess is yes.  And that might be a problem in the making.

Our Three Guests

Germany is fortunate this week, in having a US Senator and two representatives flying over and having "talks".  A German would likely scratch his head, and ask....what kind of "talks"?  The American would grin and just "talks"....you know.....the type where people sit at some table and BS for two hours, drink some coffee, shop for some Christmas cookies and German-made wool sweaters, pose for pictures with naive German political figures, and then race back to the five-star hotel to lounge at the spa.

Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut is the guy leading the group.  The news folks haven't announced the two Congressman, which might be an indicator that they are junior players on the political scene.

The schedule?  All that German news is reporting is that the guys will be in Berlin for roughly twenty-four hours.  They will meet Germany's outgoing secretary of state...Westerwelle.....then having some type of working lunch or meeting with members of the Bundestag (numbers aren't mentioned).

I'd take a humble guess that Westerwelle will be blunt.  He doesn't play politics very well, and usually gets to the point very quickly.  He's the type who will explain a problem in two minutes....instead of the typical twelve minutes that most political figures will use.

I imagine the Westerwelle meeting won't be pleasant for the three US members.  They might be shocked at the blunt language and direct finger-pointing.  They walk out and start to feel a bit overwhelmed....how they'd upset someone to that degree.

The later meeting with Bundestag members?  I'd take a guess that this ninety-odd minute meeting will go with the message that Germans are patiently waiting for the 'old American' to come back to the table.  These were the Americans that Germans liked and prefered in the 1980s.....the Quiet Man-character that John Wayne portrayed.  No bragging....no deceit....no pretender talk.....just a humble man at the table.  There is no such character at the table presently....so the Germans will just wait it out.

It's a hectic schedule.  Arrive in Berlin on Sunday, rest.....run around all day, and Tuesday....end up in Brussels for one day, then board the plane and likely leave on Wednesday.  Being all tired and frustrated by negative talk in Europe.....the three will likely take Thursday and Friday off, and just pretend the trip had positive feedback, but it's best not to mention what was said by the Germans.

2013 has been a curious year for American and German relationships.  The best part of the year?  Miley Cyrus visiting and being given the Bambi Award.  We'd best like to forget about that Bieber kid and his monkey issue, the NSA business, the Merkel bugged phone, Syria, the trade export slant, and the fake Lady Gaga tour to Berlin ("it" came and went).  Now to wrap up the year?  Three wise men from American politics....trying to apologize for something that is way beyond them.

The Craftsman Ticket

For years, and perhaps decades.....around Wiesbaden, there was a fit for every single trade craftsman who arrived to spend an hour or two at some building in town, and could not find parking.  The craftsman would drive around five minutes and eventually find some illegal place to park.  He'd rush into the building and hope over the next thirty to sixty minutes...he'd finish up the job before the traffic-parking police would arrive to ticket him.

Sadly, the statistics were never in the favor of the craftsman, and they enjoyed tickets on a frequent basis.  Small companies and operations took to the position of putting the cost of the tickets into their estimates.  When you paid one-hundred Euro for a lock issue....a small portion of that was the ticket cost for the craftsman.  It was nickel-and-diming the small business operations of Wiesbaden.

This past week, the city finally picked up a practice that several other towns in the region have explored and used....artisian parking.

You operate a small business?  You go in and register your vehicles (up to six) for 305 Euro (roughly $375) for a year.  This allows you a small sign for the vehicle which is the waiver for illegal parking.  The city is blessing you in some fashion.....just pay this 'tax' and you avoid the various fines.

Still parking in illegal spots?  Well....the city isn't going to say much on this or how you just get around the angle.  You can't park near fire hydrants, or in zones where fire trucks must maneuver.  Personally, I'm not sure if the waiver really fixes much of anything, except a small business guy only spends 305 Euro a year instead of two thousand on fines like they were doing.  Maybe that's a positive.

German Nursing

Last night, I ended up watching a piece off HR (the Hessen public-run TV network).  The show?  Der Nachste, Bitte: Pflegenostand Krankenhaus.

It was a docu-news piece.  Half the time....these run off into odd directions and you'd like to ask forty additional questions because they never got very deep into the topic.

Last night's piece touched on the German hospital business....from inside.  It was a 45-minute piece over nurses at a cancer treatment hospital in Berlin, the patient's view of the nurses, and the amount of effort put into a forty-hour-a-week job.

These are professional folks who run at maximum from the minute they arrive at the hospital, until the minute they leave.  There is no slow-period like you'd expect.

My general opinion is that German nurses take their duty as a personal thing, and if there were a thousand things to accomplish in the normal day.....they'd do it.

Between the scenes, you can sense a whine here and there.  They aren't happy about the hours, the calls to fill in when some nurse is sick, or the atmosphere where your customers might not be around tomorrow when you return to work....meaning they passed during the night.  It's not a pleasant job.....but they are drawn to it for some odd reason.

From an American prospective, staying in any hospital is a miserable experience.  Getting the right doctor is usually the highest priority.  After viewing this TV episode....maybe getting the right nurse matters a bit too.

Luck

Sunday night came with traditional German TV offerings...mostly the crime series Tatort, and at 9:45....came the traditional political chat show, which entices and draws a fair number of Germans every Sunday night.

The chat show is run by commentator Gunther Jauch.  You'd best describe Gunther as a combination of football's Terry Bradshaw (the common man on observations), CBS's Andy Rooney (a cynical wit at times), and Judge Judy (passing some direct words on all parties).

Last night was a rather odd piece that went off in a different direction.  It was an hour of fruitful discussion on "luck" or in some cases....the absence of "luck".

You had the mother who lost a son to cancer, who talked about the luck involved and the changes in perception of life.  You had the young guy who screwed up a physical act on Wetten, Dass and became paralyzed.  You had the older woman, who as a teenager, fell out of a plane as it was coming apart and was the only survivor of a crash.....basically walking out of a Peruvian jungle after ten days.

Luck was examined in a hundred different ways.

I'm guessing some folks were a bit amazed by the talk and where this all led.  Germans are a tough bunch of folks, who often fall into a run of bad luck, and it weighs heavily upon their mind for the rest of their lives.  Some see through the run of bad luck, and just accept the consequences.  Some saw the bad luck as a motivator or a way to a better life.

It was an odd show.  Prime time.  Typically a show that talks about the bad NSA guys, German welfare, the eternal tax reform gimmick, electricity costs, or dimwitted students.  But for one brief hour, they talked over how we are all affected by luck or the absence of luck.

At one point, it kinda got pointed out that money doesn't change luck.  Then it got pointed out that bad luck can lead onto a better life.  Someone sat and led on the topic of how bad luck makes you appreciate good luck even more.

It's hard to say if any American network.....even CNN....could run a full hour and leave viewers in a vision of appreciation of luck.  But last night....ARD's one-hour show did a pretty good job.  

More Saga on the 1,500 Art Pieces

Over the past month in Germany, this lost art episode in Munich....with the 1,500 pieces of art supposedly taken by a private guy after the war....has been headline news.

The state art guys in Bavaria....basically sat on the art....for two years.  No one can really say for sure.....what was done over this period, other than identify the art and the original painter.  Beyond that?  It's questionable.

This past week....things twisted a bit more.  Legal experts sat down and examined German law and this case.

First, the eighty-year old guy who held the paintings....has documentation to show how the items were procured in the 1930s.  There's some evidence to say that Jews of standing in Germany.....needed quick cash to exit and race out of Germany....so they sold their paintings for less-than-market share.  Some of the 1,500 paintings are going to fall into the legit ownership situation.

Second, there's this German law which dictates that lost art of this type....is reported and then turned to an office in Berlin which specializes in this business for the federal state of Germany.  In this case, the Bavarian authorities just plain did not do this.  For whatever reason....whether knowledge or deceit......they just plain sat on the paintings.

Third, there's another law in Germany which allows for lost property to be returned to the original owners....but unlike French or Dutch law, there's a time limit.  That thirty-year period, has passed.  Some legal folks have commented to German newspapers.....that in a court of law.....taking the property away from the old guy may not pass the legal test required.

Fourth, the authorities have discovered that the old guy did report income made and profits.....all in Austria, where the sales were finalized over the years.  The German tax authorities will spend months...if not years.....defending their idea that all profits are German profits, but no one can be sure about this outcome.

Meanwhile, the old guy is indicating that he's still got a fight in him.....and he might just live long enough to reclaim the art.  Who inherits the paintings then? That would be a curious question but I doubt if he'd chat in public on that.

There's some hints in the German news that this ought to all lead to someone that is a guardian over the paintings.....agreeable to the old guy and the federal German government (not the Bavarian folks).

An ending in the near future?  I wouldn't count on that.  A number of federal and state folks all have different opinions, along with the German tax office, the customs office, and Jewish families who believe ownership is a thing to be discussed in a public forum.  The fat lady, as we Americans tend to refer to.....has yet to sing.

Domane Mechitildshausen

 On the far east end of Wiesbaden, you come to farming territory and the US Army post.  Next to the Army post.....is Domane Mechtildshausen.

Years ago, this was all farming property, and the bricked up farmyard....was the home and barn property of a local guy.

Things progressed over the years.....and house and barn property were no longer required.  The state, with the local school system, and the cultural guys.....went into a planning session.  They got funding, and developed an odd idea for use of the property.

First, they would take the whole interior of the bricked area....several buildings....and renovate them.  They would put up a fairly decent hotel with a dozen rooms....for upscale guests and hint of it being a bio-operation.
Then they took most of the other buildings and transformed them into a class atmosphere.  They wanted kids who desired bio agricultural backgrounds.  When that wasn't enough, they desired the troubled-kids of Wiesbaden, and used 'the farm' as a motivational tool.

Around this, they built a butcher shop operation, a cheese operation, a bakery, and a bio-grocery. It's geared to train, and to operate on a profit (of sorts).

Added to this is a full upscale restaurant and a fairly good cafe.

So you park out on the main road and walk into 'the farm'.  About a 2-minute walk.

My advice?  It's a place that you can spend two hours.  The bakery is top-notch, and has a cheese area to it as well.

The bio-grocery has just about everything, from soap to bio-foods on the shelves.

I'd pause at that point and walk into the cafe.  The goulash soup is five-star by my book.  The coffee is pretty good.  And the cheesecake is better than four-star.

Pricing?  Well....yeah....it's probably ten percent higher than normal.  But bio stuff is always that way.

It's a nice atmosphere, with a great setting for pictures.  End the day with a walk by the butcher, and pick up some decent duck or goose, and head on home.

Note, the bus stop is right out front and you can ride over.....but there's only one bus per hour going to Mainz, or one bus toward Wiesbaden.  So you might want to time your episode a bit careful if going by bus.

Listed in the top ten places of Wiesbaden?  No.  This would rank near number forty of the things in town to go and spend an afternoon at.  Little kids won't care.  Adults might be fascinated, and enjoy an afternoon in country-like atmosphere.

A Dead Building

Down on Oranienstrasse in Wiesbaden, there's an old "dead" building.

The windows all have newspapers over them.  It looks like no one has lived in the place in two or three decades.

Property always is an interesting topic in this town.  Guys buy property as investment options.  They have money in their pocket and think of things as investment opportunities.

The sad truth is....a guy will buy up five or six properties....with a couple panning out.  He holds onto a loser.....waiting.  And one day....the guy passes from this Earth.

Then the ownership of his assets, the will, and the court get into the mess.  The court will appoint someone to sort out the business.  Some good assets will be easy to sell.  Some will be impossible.  So ownership of dead guy's properties usually become a long drawn-out affair.

This building?  It's probably been on someone's for-sale list for years, and the amount of fix-up work is beyond reality.

I stood there for two minutes gazing over it.  It's inviting in some ways.  An older brick building....a history to it.  Probably over a hundred years old.  Curiously, it's barely five minutes walking to the heart of the shopping district of Wiesbaden.

A decade from now?  I'll walk the street again, and it'll probably still be sitting there.  Waiting.

The German Dopey Pills

We have this Turkish comedian in Germany....Bulent Ceylan.  He's a fairly witty guy and quick to turn a laugh on Turks, Germans, and just about any nationality that tries to confirm to German lifestyles.

So there's this clever pill gimmick that he's pushed around.  The Antiidiotikum pill.

Basically, it's a placebo deal....to help prevent you from being an idiot.  You pop one or two....and you feel a relief coming over....your moment of idiot pursuit has passed.

Folks here in the Hessen area tend to buy these....keep a box in the drawer of their desk, and when someone in the office acts like an idiot....they pull the box out and offer a pill.  Things tend to cool off at that point.

Personally, I think the pills would work in the US.  Sadly, they only come ten to a pack.  Americans might need bulk XXXL-size containers.  We might go nuts and act like an idiot ten to twenty times a day....in between our moments of brilliance and genius.

The Three Markers

Down near the Luisenplatz area of Wiesbaden....I have a favorite bakery.  To get back to the bus stop, I have to walk up the street....barely a block.

I came to a stop today....glancing down, and noted these three memory stones on the sidewalk.  It's a new trend in Germany over the last couple of years.

The three stones?

Three Jewish family members, the Berney family.

The best I can tell....they lived there....on the second or third floor of the building.  They might have owned a business....it's hard to tell.

They were picked up in 1942, deported, and ended up dying in some concentration camp.   Father, mother and daughter.

It's one of those odd things that you come across.  Three people....forgotten by the end of the war.  A fair portion of Wiesbaden was hit by bombs over WW II.  The markers are what is left and reminds you of three folks who rode off, and never came back.

The Successful Gimmick

Coffee shops in Germany often look for gimmicks.  Starbucks can't really compete against a shop with a reputation or a successful gimmick.

Sometimes....all it takes is a name, and you've got a rock-hard successful operation.

This is a espresso bar and coffee shop in Limburg.  It's down on the walkplatz area.

I sat and had lunch across from the shop one day.  Even on a cloudy and drizzle-type day....Deja Vu still had business going on.

You can imagine the business cards, and the attitude of the staff.  If you ask me....it's a brilliant move.

The Dudelsack

I turned the corner one day in Limburg, and there it was.  An authentic....one-hundred percent....British whisky shop.

Dudelsack.

It's the term used for bagpipes, or what holds the air as you puff on the pipe.

Course, I viewed the rest of the window.  It's hard to say what they meant by fine food.  The British are about the last on the face of the Earth for fine eating.

My humble guess is that people tend to stop by....pick up a bottle or two, and swap stories with the shop owner.

The Sudfriedhof

 Last week, I ended up at an odd Wiesbaden site....the south graveyard of the city.  It's called the Sudfriedhof.

It's a historical site to some degree.

Gravestones tend to go from the simple to the absolute extreme.

This one to the right?  Almost six foot tall and steel lettering.  Probably into thirty-thousand range.  It's a family plot that covers three or four generations in the Wiesbaden area.

 The gravestone for Leopold Exner?  He was a junior officer in the German military for WW I....dying in mid-November of 1917.  The stone was used for his mother and father who later passed.  It's in a place of prominence and one has to imagine that the family held a significant business or professional standing in the community.

There's a lot of military folks buried around the cemetary....from both wars.

This other stone to the right is of Josef Huber....a WW I participant.  I stood there looking at a long row of these Wiesbaden residents who passed on in the war.

If you look at the date.....he dies on Christmas day of 1916.....probably in some hospital from wounds suffered in the war.

There's a couple hundred of these stones from WW I in a very prominent part of the Sudfriedhof.

Access to the cemetery?  You can get over there by bus, or just park along the main street out front.

I'd take a guess that you'd really need four hours to see the area and have an appreciation of the history told.

The gravestones go from one extreme to another.  Some would have required a stonemason to spend not just weeks, but probably months working on one particular stone.  A significant amount of capital was put into the work done.

It is a curious thing....no grave spot is permanently guaranteed.  You go in...put your money down, and get a thirty-year lease on the spot.  At the end of thirty years...you either pay again (or your relatives pay), or you lose your spot.  This tends to mean that the stone is removed, the wood coffin is removed and burned in a dignified fashion (so I am told).

I came to note a number of stones red-tagged.....meaning their thirty years has come up.  It may be that relatives have passed on, and no one wants to continue paying on a spot thats been there since the 1960s.

The last picture?  This is the entry to the graveyard.  You'd almost think it was a train station or such.  Huge brick and concrete building....very dignified.  

An odd spot to recommend to an American living in Wiesbaden.  But I'd say that it tells a historical piece about the local society and culture.  Somewhere.....hidden amongst all the stones.....was a Jewish family....father, mother and daughter.  The daughter died in the 1920s, and the parents passed on in the 1950s and 1960s.  They'd probably had left Germany, and ended up returning after the war.  You'd like to hear the entire story.....but the stone is the only thing there....to tell of anything.

Just An Odd Picture

Last week, I was around downtown Wiesbaden, and just walking around. Then I turned a corner and here was a table set up in the walk-platz.....for Dianetics (the catch-phrase for Scientology).

I've seen them set up in Washington a couple of times, but this was the first time in Germany that I've seen them pitching the 'religion'.

So I sat down and viewed them from a safe distance.

Minutes would pass, and then I came watch this unusual moment occur, with a Islamic gal who stopped and was asking questions from the Dianetics guy.

I'd have to admit that you just don't see Muslim individuals asking questions about other religions too much.  I think peer pressure tends to prevent that sort of thing.

So for a few brief moments.....this gal got Dianetics explained.  I doubt if they explained the money angle, or the fees for the various levels of relief.  Maybe the e-meter got mentioned....maybe not.

Just another day on the streets of Wiesbaden.

They Just Said No

They had a vote Sunday here in Germany.....well....down in Bavaria anyway.  It was a unique and unusual type of vote.

Around the city of Munich, and the outlying towns of Garmisch, Traunstein and Berchtesgaden.....a vote occurred to determine if the region would go ahead and position themselves for the 2022 Winter Olympics.  It would have been a package deal, where the government put funds in to build the team and advertise toward getting nomination from five or six major regions of the world.  To be honest, more than half of the structures needed for the operation.....are already in existence.  So the cost factor would have been reasonable.

Weeks ahead of this vote, there's been a fairly significant "no" group going around and talking up the negative issues with bringing the Olympics to the area.  It's typically a four-year period of construction, road issues, and stress for any community that accepts the Olympics.

The "no" folks were successful.  The vote on Sunday went against the idea of a bid.

This all kinda shocked the local political figures and journalists.  Most folks were anticipating some negative voting and maybe up around one-third of the population thinking this way.  In this case, from all four areas voting...."no" won in the majority.

The basis for this stance?  I'd take a humble guess that local Germans evaluated how things worked in 1972 (their last Olympics).  Some of the older folks remembered the significant stress they endured.  Most of these locations already make a fairly decent amount of money off tourism and winter sports.....with no real desire to go beyond that point.  They are happy.....as is.

What this all meant, if it'd passed?  Billions of Euro would have been shipped off to the region.  Road money, new parking lots, new infrastructure projects, enhanced train stations, and for two brief weeks.....at least a million visitors to the local area, in the midst of winter who would have spent money like crazy on beer, food, and souvenirs.

The curious piece left over from this vote?  All across Germany, it's likely now being discussed if any major German town could survive such a vote, and perhaps there's an end point for any Olympics ever being held in Germany ever again.  This is probably why most countries don't ever allow a vote to occur, and they just allow representatives to vote on such things, not the public.

Statues

 In America, there's typically a bunch of standards over statues.  It's best to always select a statue for your town or city....by going for modern artsy stuff, without any nude stuff.  This way, folks are confused, but feel appropriate when looking at the stuff.

Here in Germany, you can go dopey for modern stuff, with obtuse angles, rich colors, and representations of Bullwinkle and Pop-tarts combined.  Or, you can go for plain old statues with realistic figures....sometimes in a flirting pose.....kinda nude.

Germans don't get all peppy about stuff like this.  I think it's mostly because they've seen enough marble ladies now, and unclothed damsels with overflowing features don't bother them much.

These are both from Frankfurt, near the old opera house.

The top one?  Well, it's interesting.  I wanted to take the picture badly, but all these foreign tourists (mostly Chinese guys)....were all posing by sitting on her butt and having their buddy Wung Joe shoot their picture.  I had to wait in line....to get my shot.  Days from now, Wung Joe will return to China....brag about his "German" gal, and bring out the picture to tell about the fantastic trip.

Brushes

Long ago, in the US....most all brush products were hand-made.  They were four-star quality, and tended to last for years and years, not twelve to twenty-four months.

Here in Germany, they will sell you the Chinese-made cheapo brushes.....like they do in the US.  Or you can go to a 'mom-and-pop' shop in a couple of the bigger towns, which specialize in handmade brushes.

So I was down Leipzig Strasse in Frankfurt, and came across this little small shop that still sells the handmade stuff.

Hundreds of different types of brushes, for every practical occasion.  Soft bristles, hard bristles, bristles from horses, bristles from durable long-lasting products.

Finding something like this in the US?  Well, if you live around the Mennonite community....maybe.  Otherwise, you'd have to order something from a warehouse in Georgia....and wait for Uncle Gus to rummage through the stock-room and find what you need.

Manly Statues

A long time ago, it was practical that when you built a new building.....you stuck statues on the front, the top, or the sides.  It made a statement about the character of the building, and those who worked in it.

If you walk around German cities enough, you tend to notice a lot of this.

Mostly in the US....around these industrial suburbs that we've developed over the past fifty years....it's mostly some fancy landscaping....a big "name" sign in front of the building....and if there is art....it's mostly stuff that doesn't make sense.

A German guy could walk into a building like this....approaching from the street or subway exit, and casually walk up and admire the "godly-like" character on the building....get himself an attitude....and walk in to do dynamic and demanding tasks.

Of course, an American company would review the German view of statues....then start pumping out a bunch of Batman, Flash, and Wonder Woman statues for company ornament.  Yeah, we are that bold and stupid.

Graffiti That Tells a Story

Good graffiti typically works on two levels.

First, it could be artistic and connected to real artists.  It's rare to find that kind of stuff, but it does exist.

Second, it can state political commentary in art form.

This is from Leipzig Strasse area of Frankfurt, mostly dumping on the big business and big bank establishment of Germany.

The Dino Museum

 In Frankfurt, about five minutes walking from the Messe area, there's the Senckenbergishe Museum for Natural History.  It's a five-star afternoon....worth visiting.

To get there?  Take U4 from the Frankfurt city train station to the first stop....the Messe.  Walk out and west on the Friedrich-Ebert Strasse. Then catch the Senckenberganlage north.  It's on the left side of the street.

You will come to notice the T-Rex in the park as you approach the building.  Yeah, he's wearing the jersey for the local Frankfurt soccer club.

The fee?  Eight Euro to enter for adults.

Figure around three to four hours to really tour the entire place.

There is a coffee shop and beer spot up on the top floor....which I'd heavily endorse as a spot to rest half-way through the walk of the place.

For a kid, it's simple walk and you tend to ask questions.    There's a guide or two around....who have a working knowledge of English.

The displays?  About as good as it gets.

I'd suggest to avoid the place on weekends....when tourists tend to pile in.

Walking out?  Well....if you continued north for a block and look west, you can just start to see Leipzig Strasse in the distance.  If you did have a hunger, and a decent thirst....this shopping district is four-star and you can get a good quick dinner at any of twenty different operations.

Getting Dizzy

Along most major German cities are these poster towers to advertise things.  So yesterday, I stood there....in a daze for about thirty seconds....looking at this poster.

For some folks, you could go off into some trance....thinking of Lucky Charms cereal, some check-out gal at Wal-Mart, or an episode of Gunsmoke....and then come out of the daze to realize you haven't moved in several minutes.

Yeah, there ought to be a law about posters like this.....but we just won't do something that radical.

My guess is that a hundred university students come by the poster everyday....stop....go into a trance.....and think they are on some island in the Pacific and drinking Milk of Magnesia and buttermilk combined.   Sooner or later, they come out of the trance, and skip off to have a beer and forget all that trance stuff.

Train Station Posters

Germans tend to make very complicated processes.  People generally hate them for that....but their processes tend to work.

Germans also tend to explain their complicated processes in the most simple way possible.  And that tends to work.

So this is a train poster of sorts....at your neighborhood station.

The left side is the schedule for outgoing trains.  It'll list the time that the train is leaving....the couple of destinations that it will travel through.....and the final destination (with the arrival time noted).  Note, this schedule rarely changes (maybe one or two items off the entire list per year).

The right side?  That's the track layout within the twenty-mile-odd circle.  You can only go, where the tracks lead.  So you can gaze at your standing spot, and the destination, and guess which trains work or don't work.  The S2 only goes from this city to this city.  The S3 from this town to that town.

The truth is....some idiot could get off the plane....speak no German....spend eight minutes gazing at the poster, and determine his plan or agenda.

The Trainwreck Art Piece

Down around Senckenberganlage and Bockenheimer Landstrasse in Frankfurt.....right at the university complex....there's this piece of art laying on the street.

It's a subway train of sorts.....guiding gracefully down into the ground, or so you perceive.

It's a big chunk of art....tons and tons.
I try to avoid getting around to fancy descriptions or such....mostly because I'm lacking from that educational phase in my life (those odd Bama years).

But it's safe to say.....some guy felt an urge to convey something, and some city council said go for it.  In Bama, it would have taken a lot of alcohol....to convince and get approval for something like this.

One Step Forward

For me to ever return home from Wiesbaden after a day of walking around....there's only one method.  You end up by the Luisenplatz area, waiting at the bus stop for the three buses per hour to come by.

I've come to realize after three months here....that it might be fifteen to twenty minutes of waiting at this major bus stop in town.  Naturally, there's almost no benches.

This week, I was kinda shocked.  Two guys pulled up to the bus park area, and started this three-day project (yeah, it should have been done in half-a-day, but this is Germany).

Several benches are being put up and ample seating will become a reality in the next day or so.  The cost?  Well....it's best not to guess on this, but it's probably in the ten-thousand range for stainless steel benches, and the workmanship involved.  Yeah, wooden benches would have cheaper.....but we gotta help those poor stainless steel guys and their industry.

And I should note here....at least they were smart enough to put the new benches under the roofed area of the bus stop....and not out in the open where you'd get wet from the snow or rain.

Snowden Saga Continues

Today, we kinda learned that at least twenty different NSA people had to be talked by Ed Snowden....into giving up passwords to certain programs and hardware systems.....for him to be successful at his overall goal.

NSA knows the twenty to twenty-five folks.  News reports won't say much after that point.  So I'll fill in the holes and add speculation to the mess.

After Ed Snowden "ran"....the twenty-odd folks sat there....each soon figuring out that Ed had their password, and wondering if this would come to be a problem.

Weeks would pass, and someone from NSA would call them up and ask for them to come by and make a statement.  There's likely three people in the room, and the conversation is being recorded to flip into a statement.

Eventually, each of the twenty tell the story of how Ed spoke of some critical problem, some system error, some issue of importance, and he desperately needed them to release the password to him.  They complied.

The statement is printed out.  The twenty end up signing the statements, and then it goes to a security committee of sorts.

Basically, if you are a contractor.....you are relieved immediately and will be given a notice of termination within your contractor company for failure to comply with government regulations.  Contractor companies don't keep guys in this situation around.  They dump them.  Of the twenty-odd folks, we have no idea how many are contractors, military, or government-service.

The military folks?  You can't fire them, but you can determine a punishment that would suit the issue.  Maybe a stripe taken away.....maybe your clearance completely revoked back down to secret-only.....maybe you get an Article-15 judgement.

The government-service folks?  If you are near sixty, they'd let you walk out and retire.  If you aren't near retirement age....an evaluation might be produced at the next cycle and rate you near the bottom.  Basically, you could forget about moving up for a decade or two, and you could forget about any leadership positions.  Firing?  It'd be hard, but you crossed the line on the security rules....so there's ample room to fire you.

My humble guess is that twenty-odd folks are peeved, angry, frustrated, and hostile toward Ed Snowden now.  Their lives are completely changed forever.  None will ever trust anyone for any reason.

Ed, in some odd way, is a guy who has no real friends.  The news media has often picked up the bits and pieces of Ed's life, and rarely speak on the issue of friends who knew him closely, or people who speak up for him.  Ed seems to be a guy with an agenda, and no hesitation to screw over just about anyone around him.

Hero-status from the twenty-odd folks?  No....don't expect any of them to have that opinion.  Ed isn't a friend, a competent co-worker, a trusted associate, or guy they rely upon.  It probably wouldn't take much for any of the twenty to get angry enough to hunt down Ed, and extract some brief moment of revenge.

For Ed....he's not just worrying about the US government or NSA hunting him down.  He's also worrying about some individuals with a fixation on teaching Ed now a lesson.  

The "X" Map

I have a bad habit....wherever I travel....I collect maps.

I've been collecting maps since 1977, to be precise.

The other day....I was directed to kinda clean out my map drawer....so I checked it out....yep, they are ok, and put them all back in.  I just couldn't bring myself to throw any of the three hundred-odd maps away.

So, I have this one odd map that I came to.  It's a simple Germany map....except it's from around 1988, when "the wall" was still up.

Yeah, I opened it up and checked it entirely.....nice "X"-marks to note the East German border and a division of Berlin marking.

It's kind of a collector thing now.  Most all Germans threw their old DDR-West Germany maps away years ago.  Some folks will still drive up to a certain point, and note for the pleasure of folks in the car....we've crossed over into DDR. Some folks don't take it as a joke though.

I've had this great fictional story in my mind, for a book.  Some Germans desperate to build up a tour company.....advertise to some older-minded Americans....a tour into DDR.  They fly the naive Americans over....pretend the wall is still up, and spend ten days driving them around the countryside of the communist republic (Yeah, it's hard to convey a republic being associated with a communist area).

Maybe one day....it'll be worth something....well....maybe worth a donut and a cup of coffee.

The ESWE Building

This little glass-like building is at the main bus stop by the Wiesbaden train station.

Inside, you will find one gal who will give you tons and tons of information about the bus system, the various cards, discounts, and ways to get from here to there.

Most of the ladies have a fair ability with English.

So if you are a permanent resident around the Wiesbaden area.....you might want to stop in....get a free map...and ask some stupid questions.

Note: about two hundred feet behind the stand is a fine outdoor beer-garden for summer thirst situations.

Blitz Cameras

The two odd poles in the picture?  Blitz cameras (speed cameras).  They are down on the Mainzer Strasse in Wiesbaden.  They are arranged to catch you going and coming.

Germans over the past decade have gotten around to permanent cameras....mounted in a way that you can't destroy them....if you got kinda peeved.

You could drive this route every single day, and after a while....not even think about it....except to keep your speed a couple of 'clicks' under the max.

The Little Medal

Weeks ago, my wife dragged out a bunch of stuff and we gleaned the items for garbage or to save.

So in the middle of this batch....is this German medal of sorts.

The only thing my wife knew....from her family (Germans)....this had been passed down, and stored in some cabinet in the basement.  No one knew much of anything, and didn't care to know much of anything.

Well.....I'm never one to pass by a possible story.  So I dug into the medal.  Thirty minutes of research came to a couple of brief facts.

This is a German military medal from brief war of 1864 between Denmark and Prussia (with their friends at the time....the Hapsburg Empire).

The war was fairly short....starting in March of 1864 and winding up in October 1864.  For the Danish people....it was a fairly messy adventure, with Prussia easily winning.  The outcome brought two major areas of Denmark's control....over to Prussia and the Hapsburg Empire.

It's best to note this while on the topic....whatever property the Hapsburgs won in this adventure.....was a momentary thing.  Within a short period of time.....Germany triggered a war with the Hapsburgs, and took the former Danish property over.

The medal?  It came years later.  It's a curious thing, but it was a artillery medal given to the members of some unit from Brandenburg.

It was German custom for a fair number of wars....to come up twenty to thirty years after the event, erecting monuments and statues and awarding older guys medals.

In this case, I can only imagine that some younger member of my wife's family....went off in search of an adventure of sorts, drafted himself into this artillery unit, and rode the train up north to participate.  He made his way safely home after the war, and probably sat there for years and years....telling the war stories over the great defeat of the Danes.  It may be....after a while....everyone in the family was sick of the war stories, and thus no one really cared much for the medal business.

Anyway, I convinced the wife to keep the medal.  It is worth some minor cash on the medal market....but frankly....who remembers this stupid Denmark-Prussia-Hapsburg one-year war?

The Little Drink

It is gluehwein season, and I'll pass on some advice to Americans who notice gluehwein and wonder about it.

First, gluehwein is basically regular wine, with a fair amount of sugar added, and heated to the temperature of coffee.

Second, it's generally only sold from October to March.  Most folks only buy it around November and December.

Third, you typically drink it in out-door situations.  It's sold by the coffee cup.

Fourth.  If you have a problem with high doses of sugar....DON'T drink gluehwein.

Fifth.  Because it's heating you up in a cold outdoor situation.....you finish  up a cup in typically twenty minutes, and want a second cup.  Not a smart idea.  This stuff gets into your system fast....because of the heat, and three cups within an hour....WILL make you drunk.  Don't drive with more than one cup in your system....and at least thirty to sixty minutes after you finish the one cup.

Sixth.  There's a couple of versions of it.  This is cherry flavored, and fairly sweet.

Seventh.  Yes, it is a Xmas drink and very acceptable for folks to come over to your house, and you can serve it to them.  No, it can't be served cold....it must be heated (in a pot) and poured into a regular coffee cup.

Eighth.  If I didn't emphasize it enough.....you can get fairly stupid drunk with this stuff, in a shopping district, and buy crap you didn't intend to buy.  So, drink only after you finished shopping.  You really need to limit yourself to two cups max in a day.  Anything beyond five cups, and you are wasted.

(Not intended as advice for Germans)

The Art Saga

This Munich art episode continues to amaze Germans.

First, the old guy who was questioned on the train going into Germany from Switzerland....with vast sums of money?  Cops came to his house and found roughly 1,500 paintings.....most of them rolled up and just sitting there.  The art historians say everything is in good condition....no issues.

Then after three days of tagging and removing the art (over a year ago)....the old guy just suddenly leaves.  No one has seen the guy since then.  It's a total mystery over where he went, or if he just went off into the woods to commit suicide.

What the authorities will say.....they figure the current count at 1,500.  They aren't exactly sure what the original number was, and won't take guesses on this.  Who knows.....maybe there were 2,500 to start with?

Where this mess goes next?  Well....that's an interesting piece.  One gets the impression that once they tag and identify each single piece.....some art museum in Munich wants to display everything, at least for a while.  The confidence rate for returning the items to the original owners?  From last night's TV news....I'd say some attempt will be made....but don't put much confidence in the outcome.  If fifty of the paintings get back into private hands....you will be lucky.

The rest of the collection?  It ends up as Bavarian state property....my humble guess.  Some folks will be peeved and disagree on this angle.  But the Bavarians aren't going to waste tons of time and resources on finding dead people, and their dead descendents (again, my humble opinion).

Then we come to this interesting piece of the story.  What intrigued the cops to a great degree about this old guy?  He'd never paid taxes....ever.  Other than having a passport, and registered in the city....there's virtually no record of this guy.  No pension, etc.  No one ever came to visit the guy in his apartment.  He was a virtual unknown character.  They can't even say how he spent his money over the last couple of decades.

Germany is this nation of order.  Everyone has records.  Everyone is noted in some book.  Everyone has a trail.  This guy?  Nothing to really say of any trail.  It does not even appear that he had a credit card, and that he moved around strictly on cash.  I'd have doubts that he even had a phone in the apartment, or had any mail sent to him.  Traveling outside of Europe?  I'd have doubts that he ever made such a trip.  Big-spender?  No....absolutely no evidence of that.

What did he do with the profits of the sales that he made from the art?  No one knows.

There's a brilliant five-star movie sitting here and waiting to be written.  The trouble is.....you have no ending....and the art?  It just gets shuffled around and in ten years....quietly absorbed into some Bavarian state collection.

Just Another NSA Day

Every single day....there's a new twist to the Snowden---German---NSA---spying business.

Today?  Someone is strongly suggesting via a British newspaper....the Independent....that the British Embassy in Berlin....just a stone's throw from the Bundestag....was also on the collection side in business dealings.

Factual?  Well, you just don't know.  These days...you could take an ounce of truth and stretch it a good bit.

I pulled up the embassy map of Berlin and looked at everything with a mile of the Bundestag (the German Parliament).  There's around eight embassy operations there.  The possibility of the Russians, or the French...spying as well?  Well, it's best not to bring this up.

The Romanians?  Well...yeah....they are about a mile away.  The Greeks?  Maybe a bit over a mile.

Could there be a dozen-odd countries in Berlin collecting on Chancellor Merkel's cellphone?  It's best not to suggest that.

And those evil Chinese?  Well....they are roughly two miles to the east of the Bundestag, and safely beyond the 'net'.  Course, they are on the river Spree, and the Chinese submarine fleet might be parked there and quietly move up the river to be within yards of the Bundestag at appropriate times.

The sad thing is that there's no end to this spy business.  Just a guy standing in the field in front of the Bundestag....with hot-dog cart....could have a radio-receiver device and be collecting cellphone transmissions.....reporting them back to Tonga.  And tomorrow, it'd be reported as factual in some German newspaper.

The Art

This is one of those Paul Harvey-type stories.

So this older gentleman was traveling on a train from Switzerland into Germany, and for some reason....something stuck out.  His clothing....his shoes....his briefcase....whatever.

So the German customs folks pulled him and did an intensive search.  In Germany, you can do things like this with no judge's permission.

What they find is a substantial amount of cash....way over what you'd say was acceptable to carry.  The authorities won't say the precise amount....I'd take a pretty good guess at something between 50,000 and 150,000 Euro ($60,000 to $200,000).

He's an older guy....but this explanation of the cash doesn't ring true.....and he's coming in from Switzerland.

So an investigation starts.  Days pass, and the cops show up in his Munich apartment. He could have cleaned out the mess....but he's an older guy with no real enthusiasm left in him.

So the cops walk in and what they find....is roughly 1,500 paintings.  It's a big huge apartment but it's like to be in the 150 to 200 square meter range.  The place is mostly ratted out.....garbage and newspapers.  He hadn't obviously cleaned it in months or years.

The paintings?  Well, that's the funny thing.  It's the kind of stuff that guys dream of. Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall.  Then there's noted German painters from before WW II....Nolde, Marc, Beckmann and Liebermann.

The story unfolds.  Before WW II....the Nazis were pouring over the Jewish elite in Germany, and taking their art.  The Nazi leadership reached some point where they decided a significant amount of the art was unfit stuff....at least by their opinion....so they hired a German to sell the stuff on the market.  This guy started the act, but kinda rolled this along slowly.  The war came to an end.....with him claiming to the authorities that much of the art was destroyed in bombing raids.

This guy quietly disappears and the art stays with him.  He passes away, and his son takes up the collection.

The son grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.  He's in his 80's presently. Whatever charges they want to dream up....this guy doesn't care.  He's lived a good long and decent life.  He took a painting or two each year and sold them on the market outside of Germany.  No one ever asked questions, and he simply took the cash payment and went back to his apartment.

The value?  No one can clearly say for sure.  You see....they are still in the identification stage and trying to find the owners.   Most of the owners are dead.  Then you look for relatives of them.  On and on.

The authorities won't dare say it in public....but this 1,500 piece collection could take ten years to clear up and finalize on the ownership side.  The value is kinda tossed around and they've given it a billion-dollar number.....mostly because it's so unusual and no one can be sure what any of this will bring on the market.

This brings one to this odd observation.  No one says this of course.  All this art....seems to be believed by the media....to be owned officially by Jewish families and stolen from them.  Well.....it might well be that ten percent or twenty percent.....were stolen property items that Jewish families came across in the early 1900s, and simply added to collections.

You might find a fair number of these were actually sold by Jewish families when they knew time was running out and they needed cash in a hurry.

For me....there's this curious alternate ending.  If the customs police hadn't suspected the guy....he would have continued on, and likely died in five to ten years.  There are no relatives.  So someone would have walked into this apartment, and felt a bit of shock over a bunch of art.  They might have even backed up a truck to the building, and hauled the stuff off to some dump.....thinking it was all garbage he'd picked up at flea markets.

A strange story, if you ask me.