franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
I woke up at 2AM.
Of course.
I tossed and turned until around 3AM when I decided to play some games on my tablet. That worked, and by 4AM I was tired again and I slept lightly for another 3 hours.
I got up and got dressed around then, and went down to breakfast. I love me my Hampton waffles, and was super happy to find the Nuremberg sausages on the breakfast buffet.
The buffet area here is nice.
They have very good coffee from this fancy coffee machine. Which is what I wrote on that second day, come to find out, everywhere in hotels have those fancy coffee machines.
I texted Magdalene to let her know I was up and going and she suggested we meet at the train station at 10AM. Our plans today included me checking out the museum at her work. You see Magdalene works at the Court House in Nuremberg. If you are not aware, Nuremberg is the location of the trials where the Nazi War criminals were tried and convicted.
I should have let her know that I'm a super slow museum person and we would have actually met earlier, but oh well! I also needed to pick up a few items. When I washed my hair this morning my conditioner felt a lot more sudsy than normal. Well that's because I bought shampoo of my regular brand and not conditioner. Doh!
Also Europeans don't turn on AC until later in the year. This was also a sticking point for me about booking this hotel. I'd read in reviews from last summer that the AC didn't work in the hotel. Magdalene said at the time of year I was visiting that really wouldn't matter, heat would be more important. I'm not sure if either worked in the room. But the window could open and I needed a small fan to move the air around the room.
I left the hotel a little early with the intent to visit the shop that Michael told me was the equivalent of the American Walgreens. So here’s looking back at my hotel.
The train station was a bit further down the road from where I was staying. I walked another couple hundred feet and took this shot.
That tower that you see….that’s another point of entrance to the city center. The only cars that can drive in there are taxis, and perhaps people who actually live there. I’m not exactly sure. There was mostly pedestrian traffic. The train station is directly across from that tower.
I’m not sure if I said it earlier, but the train station is many things. It is a mini mall, has many place to eat and even grocery stores. I took a few snaps to show you all. And no, you are no walking into a giant Burger King, that restaurant is upstairs, see the folks dining.
This is where Michael and I got lunch the day before.
So I went to Millers in the mall there. They did have some conditioner, but no fan. When I met up with Magdalene she said she knew of a place we could check once we picked up the rental car.
We met in the train station and took the underground to her work. I have no idea which trains we took and whether or not we transferred. She's a whiz at getting around on public transport, and shortly we were at the museum.
She told me to text her when I was done and we would get some lunch and go pick up the rental car.
The tour started in the actual courtroom where the trials took place.
I don't have many pictures because it really wasn't a tour with much to see. After you paid for admission they gave you a little audio tour device for your language. I was able to use my earphones that I carry when I travel to listen instead of having to hold it to my ear. There were mostly a bunch of panels like this with a few pictures and a lot of dialogue on the headset.
It was very comprehensive. The tour began before WWII and went into depth about the Hague and how it was established as one of the first entities to broker for world peace. It also talked a bit about how the National Socialist German Workers' Party viewed themselves. Following WWI, the League of Nations was established, but once Hitler rose to power he scoffed at these entities. He was able to seize upon the sentiments of the Nationalists and cater to their demands, which is how he rose to power so easily. In his mind the German people were superior and needed more land. It was their right to take what they needed. It was this desire to gain more land that eventually led to World War II.
And then the exhibits jumped to the post war era. They had pictures of the 24 war criminals and which counts they were indicted for. The counts were:
1) Conspiracy
2) crimes against peace
3) war crimes
4) crimes against humanity
Some criminals were tried posthumously, as they were either killed or took their own lives before the trial. All were found guilty on at least one count, many on multiple counts. Some were executed, others served prison time. Of those who went to prison and were released eventually, I think one of them lived until 1989.
The next part was absolutely fascinating. It was excerpts from the papers that actually proved their guilt. I was astonished that the Nazis wrote down the minutes and notes that they did! Their words were vile, and totally incrimiated them. I actually had to stop listening to these because it was at this point I'd already been in the museum longer than Magdalene had said it would take to view the entire museum. The areas of the museum were grouped by three digit numbers that you would key into the audio guide to listen to the specific audio clips. I was in the 200s when I texted Magdalene, she didn't know how much was left, but told me to keep going.
When I reached the audio clips in the 300s (no they didn't have 100 clips for each section, but they did have as many as 30 or 40 in the 200s.), we were now learning about how the trials themselves were conducted. There were prosecutors from the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.
This was the first trial in the world that used simultaneous translation. Previously there would have been a pause while the translators read the information back and forth, but through the use of earpieces and other technology this was a state of the art trial.
We learned of the fates of the convicted men, the media response, and how the world viewed and understood this never before witnessed justice. There were more rooms which talked about the trials in the Pacific Theater, and how they later went on to try lesser criminals and hold them responsible for crimes. These were doctors who performed experiments, businessmen who just went along for the ride, and people who knew they were doing wrong, but didn't speak up.
I skipped most of the last section because I'd been there three hours already. (Originally Magdalene said it's about an hour and a half of material). But this last section talked about justice in the late 20th Century and early 21st century. There was a map of continents showing where war had broken out in the last half of the 20th Century. The only place that was spared was North America. And perhaps the North and South Poles.
There was more about things that happened in the first decade of the 21st century, and I think there was a movie playing at the end, but I’d already been there a long time, so I took the elevator down to the ground floor, turned in my headset and texted Magdalene that I was done.
She met me on the corner and we walked down the street to a cafe that I think she eats at fairly often. I had wanted to try Currywurst. So many people rave about it, and she said that this place had a good one. I ordered the Currywurst.
She ordered the käsespätzle, and we decided that if I didn’t like the Currywurst, she would be happy to eat it. It tasted to me like a hot dog, in an odd sort of ketchup sauce. I didn’t care for it that much so we switched dishes. I very much enjoyed the käsespätzle.
Then we were off to the airport to pick up a rental car. Michael and Magdalene do not own a car because the city is very easy to navigate with trains and on foot. It's one of those places where a car can be more of a nuisance than a blessing. Also you may ask if there is an airport so close why didn't you just fly there? Well I don't remember the details, but I did look into it before I actually booked my flights. I think the way it worked out, if I flew into Nuremberg I would transfer through Heathrow and my layover would have been 12 hours or something ridiculous like that. Since my last stop is Linz, and at the time I originally booked my International flights, the airport at Linz still had flights to Frankfurt, it made more sense.
Even with the train trips back and forth to Frankfurt, I still have the minimal time in transit overall by flying round trip to Frankfurt. But I digress.
After securing the vehicle we drove to an indoor mall, where there was a Media Markt, an electronics store. I found my miniature fan there. It was USB charged so even though it came with an EU plug, I can still charge it with my USB hub when I'm in the US.
Magdalene had planned to visit the butcher before we picked up the rental car, but since I took so long at the museum, she rung them up and reserved the cuts of meat we needed for dinner so that they did not sell out. Our next stop was the butcher to get the meat for the dinner we would be cooking this evening.
At the indoor mall we had visited a grocery store which was larger than her local market and we intended To get everything we needed, however they were missing some key ingredients. After the butcher we drove to their flat, but we still needed a few ingredients for dinner. Right across the street from the entrance to their building was a Thai restaurant called Cantina. And next door to that was a grocery store. This whole urban living thing still boggles my mind.
I live in a suburb surrounded by an urban area. I've realized that if I wanted to walk to restaurants and even grocery stores that it is well within my capability. I would just have to go out the gate next to my house which leads to the busy street behind where I live. However, Fran’s mobility issues dictated that we drive everywhere. Many things are a 15-20 minute walk from my house, but anyways.
We picked up the few little things that we needed to complete dinner, and headed up their place. Michael was waiting for us.
Since it was later than we expected, we got started cooking right away. Well Magdalene did, she started chopping everything, and I poured a glass of wine. Eventually I did help.
I seasoned the “inside” of the meat, rubbed it with mustard, and then distributed the onions, pickles, and bacon amongst them.
Magdalene rolled the first two, and I tried the third one. She had to reroll it and said that it was cut difficultly and was the hardest one to roll.
She started the Rouladen cooking and made the späetzle dough, and realized she forgot to buy cream for the soup. That's a benefit of having the grocery store right across the street. She had peeled the asparagus, and I worked on chopping the asparagus for the soup.
While she made the soup, I made the späetzle. It was pretty easy with the right machine! She eventually took over, because she was much better at it than me. And then we sat down to dinner. First the soup.
Then the Rouladen. It was a lot of food. I could only eat half of my beef roll. It was good but very filling.
I didn't need any dessert, I was stuffed! We sat around talking until around 10PM, when we realized that we better get me back to my hotel. Because parking in their neighborhood is difficult at best, we left the car where it was and took the U-bahn back to the train station. I believe they walked me to the corner just a block from the hotel, where I took the picture that morning of the tower at the entrance to the city center. Since I knew the way back from there we said goodnight.
Here is my new little fan in action! It was a lifesaver in that room of dead air.
And here is my Google timeline for the day, where I’d been.
And my fitbit stats
I was pretty tired after all that walking and not to mention three hours standing in the Trials museum. I didn’t fall right asleep, but when I did, I slept well on this night.
Of course.
I tossed and turned until around 3AM when I decided to play some games on my tablet. That worked, and by 4AM I was tired again and I slept lightly for another 3 hours.
I got up and got dressed around then, and went down to breakfast. I love me my Hampton waffles, and was super happy to find the Nuremberg sausages on the breakfast buffet.
The buffet area here is nice.
They have very good coffee from this fancy coffee machine. Which is what I wrote on that second day, come to find out, everywhere in hotels have those fancy coffee machines.
I texted Magdalene to let her know I was up and going and she suggested we meet at the train station at 10AM. Our plans today included me checking out the museum at her work. You see Magdalene works at the Court House in Nuremberg. If you are not aware, Nuremberg is the location of the trials where the Nazi War criminals were tried and convicted.
I should have let her know that I'm a super slow museum person and we would have actually met earlier, but oh well! I also needed to pick up a few items. When I washed my hair this morning my conditioner felt a lot more sudsy than normal. Well that's because I bought shampoo of my regular brand and not conditioner. Doh!
Also Europeans don't turn on AC until later in the year. This was also a sticking point for me about booking this hotel. I'd read in reviews from last summer that the AC didn't work in the hotel. Magdalene said at the time of year I was visiting that really wouldn't matter, heat would be more important. I'm not sure if either worked in the room. But the window could open and I needed a small fan to move the air around the room.
I left the hotel a little early with the intent to visit the shop that Michael told me was the equivalent of the American Walgreens. So here’s looking back at my hotel.
The train station was a bit further down the road from where I was staying. I walked another couple hundred feet and took this shot.
That tower that you see….that’s another point of entrance to the city center. The only cars that can drive in there are taxis, and perhaps people who actually live there. I’m not exactly sure. There was mostly pedestrian traffic. The train station is directly across from that tower.
I’m not sure if I said it earlier, but the train station is many things. It is a mini mall, has many place to eat and even grocery stores. I took a few snaps to show you all. And no, you are no walking into a giant Burger King, that restaurant is upstairs, see the folks dining.
This is where Michael and I got lunch the day before.
So I went to Millers in the mall there. They did have some conditioner, but no fan. When I met up with Magdalene she said she knew of a place we could check once we picked up the rental car.
We met in the train station and took the underground to her work. I have no idea which trains we took and whether or not we transferred. She's a whiz at getting around on public transport, and shortly we were at the museum.
She told me to text her when I was done and we would get some lunch and go pick up the rental car.
The tour started in the actual courtroom where the trials took place.
I don't have many pictures because it really wasn't a tour with much to see. After you paid for admission they gave you a little audio tour device for your language. I was able to use my earphones that I carry when I travel to listen instead of having to hold it to my ear. There were mostly a bunch of panels like this with a few pictures and a lot of dialogue on the headset.
It was very comprehensive. The tour began before WWII and went into depth about the Hague and how it was established as one of the first entities to broker for world peace. It also talked a bit about how the National Socialist German Workers' Party viewed themselves. Following WWI, the League of Nations was established, but once Hitler rose to power he scoffed at these entities. He was able to seize upon the sentiments of the Nationalists and cater to their demands, which is how he rose to power so easily. In his mind the German people were superior and needed more land. It was their right to take what they needed. It was this desire to gain more land that eventually led to World War II.
And then the exhibits jumped to the post war era. They had pictures of the 24 war criminals and which counts they were indicted for. The counts were:
1) Conspiracy
2) crimes against peace
3) war crimes
4) crimes against humanity
Some criminals were tried posthumously, as they were either killed or took their own lives before the trial. All were found guilty on at least one count, many on multiple counts. Some were executed, others served prison time. Of those who went to prison and were released eventually, I think one of them lived until 1989.
The next part was absolutely fascinating. It was excerpts from the papers that actually proved their guilt. I was astonished that the Nazis wrote down the minutes and notes that they did! Their words were vile, and totally incrimiated them. I actually had to stop listening to these because it was at this point I'd already been in the museum longer than Magdalene had said it would take to view the entire museum. The areas of the museum were grouped by three digit numbers that you would key into the audio guide to listen to the specific audio clips. I was in the 200s when I texted Magdalene, she didn't know how much was left, but told me to keep going.
When I reached the audio clips in the 300s (no they didn't have 100 clips for each section, but they did have as many as 30 or 40 in the 200s.), we were now learning about how the trials themselves were conducted. There were prosecutors from the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.
This was the first trial in the world that used simultaneous translation. Previously there would have been a pause while the translators read the information back and forth, but through the use of earpieces and other technology this was a state of the art trial.
We learned of the fates of the convicted men, the media response, and how the world viewed and understood this never before witnessed justice. There were more rooms which talked about the trials in the Pacific Theater, and how they later went on to try lesser criminals and hold them responsible for crimes. These were doctors who performed experiments, businessmen who just went along for the ride, and people who knew they were doing wrong, but didn't speak up.
I skipped most of the last section because I'd been there three hours already. (Originally Magdalene said it's about an hour and a half of material). But this last section talked about justice in the late 20th Century and early 21st century. There was a map of continents showing where war had broken out in the last half of the 20th Century. The only place that was spared was North America. And perhaps the North and South Poles.
There was more about things that happened in the first decade of the 21st century, and I think there was a movie playing at the end, but I’d already been there a long time, so I took the elevator down to the ground floor, turned in my headset and texted Magdalene that I was done.
She met me on the corner and we walked down the street to a cafe that I think she eats at fairly often. I had wanted to try Currywurst. So many people rave about it, and she said that this place had a good one. I ordered the Currywurst.
She ordered the käsespätzle, and we decided that if I didn’t like the Currywurst, she would be happy to eat it. It tasted to me like a hot dog, in an odd sort of ketchup sauce. I didn’t care for it that much so we switched dishes. I very much enjoyed the käsespätzle.
Then we were off to the airport to pick up a rental car. Michael and Magdalene do not own a car because the city is very easy to navigate with trains and on foot. It's one of those places where a car can be more of a nuisance than a blessing. Also you may ask if there is an airport so close why didn't you just fly there? Well I don't remember the details, but I did look into it before I actually booked my flights. I think the way it worked out, if I flew into Nuremberg I would transfer through Heathrow and my layover would have been 12 hours or something ridiculous like that. Since my last stop is Linz, and at the time I originally booked my International flights, the airport at Linz still had flights to Frankfurt, it made more sense.
Even with the train trips back and forth to Frankfurt, I still have the minimal time in transit overall by flying round trip to Frankfurt. But I digress.
After securing the vehicle we drove to an indoor mall, where there was a Media Markt, an electronics store. I found my miniature fan there. It was USB charged so even though it came with an EU plug, I can still charge it with my USB hub when I'm in the US.
Magdalene had planned to visit the butcher before we picked up the rental car, but since I took so long at the museum, she rung them up and reserved the cuts of meat we needed for dinner so that they did not sell out. Our next stop was the butcher to get the meat for the dinner we would be cooking this evening.
At the indoor mall we had visited a grocery store which was larger than her local market and we intended To get everything we needed, however they were missing some key ingredients. After the butcher we drove to their flat, but we still needed a few ingredients for dinner. Right across the street from the entrance to their building was a Thai restaurant called Cantina. And next door to that was a grocery store. This whole urban living thing still boggles my mind.
I live in a suburb surrounded by an urban area. I've realized that if I wanted to walk to restaurants and even grocery stores that it is well within my capability. I would just have to go out the gate next to my house which leads to the busy street behind where I live. However, Fran’s mobility issues dictated that we drive everywhere. Many things are a 15-20 minute walk from my house, but anyways.
We picked up the few little things that we needed to complete dinner, and headed up their place. Michael was waiting for us.
Since it was later than we expected, we got started cooking right away. Well Magdalene did, she started chopping everything, and I poured a glass of wine. Eventually I did help.
I seasoned the “inside” of the meat, rubbed it with mustard, and then distributed the onions, pickles, and bacon amongst them.
Magdalene rolled the first two, and I tried the third one. She had to reroll it and said that it was cut difficultly and was the hardest one to roll.
She started the Rouladen cooking and made the späetzle dough, and realized she forgot to buy cream for the soup. That's a benefit of having the grocery store right across the street. She had peeled the asparagus, and I worked on chopping the asparagus for the soup.
While she made the soup, I made the späetzle. It was pretty easy with the right machine! She eventually took over, because she was much better at it than me. And then we sat down to dinner. First the soup.
Then the Rouladen. It was a lot of food. I could only eat half of my beef roll. It was good but very filling.
I didn't need any dessert, I was stuffed! We sat around talking until around 10PM, when we realized that we better get me back to my hotel. Because parking in their neighborhood is difficult at best, we left the car where it was and took the U-bahn back to the train station. I believe they walked me to the corner just a block from the hotel, where I took the picture that morning of the tower at the entrance to the city center. Since I knew the way back from there we said goodnight.
Here is my new little fan in action! It was a lifesaver in that room of dead air.
And here is my Google timeline for the day, where I’d been.
And my fitbit stats
I was pretty tired after all that walking and not to mention three hours standing in the Trials museum. I didn’t fall right asleep, but when I did, I slept well on this night.
Last edited:
Really like this shot of you.
That's unfortunate.
