Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to wish everyone a belated merry Christmas and best wishes for 2011! 2010 has been an exciting year finishing my PhD and moving back to Canada, and as many of you already know, I’m moving to Vancouver to start a new job in January 2011. I am excited and just a little scared about starting a new life on the West Coast, but I think I’ll fit in fine with the lululemon-wearing, coffee-guzzling, ultimate-playing Vancouverites, not to mention enjoying the milder winters.

I managed to find a beautiful one-bedroom apartment only 10 minutes by foot to the beach, which I’m sure won’t look so desolate in the spring and summer. There are lots of great running trails with superb views of the downtown skyline! If you are ever passing through, please let me know.

While I was there apartment-hunting, I also enjoyed the views of the sea planes landing near Canada Place and the sea wall walk to Stanley Park, surrounded by sparkling skyscrapers.

Happy holidays everyone and hope to see you in 2011!

German Sauna Culture and Beer

As winter is full upon us here in Calgary and it’s getting colder everywhere in the northern hemisphere, I thought it might be time to do some reminiscing about German spa culture. I think European spas are something that North Americans probably don’t have a concept of. When I used to hear the word “sauna”, I would think about my local public swimming pool steam room which was suffocatingly uncomfortable and boring. Well in comparison to that Germany has the Disneyworld of saunas, namely Therme Erding. Thanks to the Therme Erding website for all these pictures; for reasons one can well imagine there are no cameras allowed in these strict birthday-suit-only German spas.

In early spring last year after submitting my thesis, I took a day off to relax and enjoy everything that Therme Erding has to offer thanks to a birthday gift certificate from my group.

This is a crazy luxury spa with every type and temperature of sauna and steam room. The saunas ranged from 38°C to 90°C with various decorations (dead branches, antlers, hundreds of thousands of real rose petals, a fireplace, sandalwood). The “aromatisches Dampfbad” had pure vapourized menthol (think breathing in super-heated Tigerbalm) with stars on the ceiling. Think pools of water decorated to be a Roman bath and cold showers pouring down from giant lilies twice my size designed to boost your immune system. (As an aside, Germans are big into cold showering. You can be called a girly-man or more accurately be saddled with the insulting “Warmduscher” moniker if you insist on warm showers).

Roman bath and the giant freezing cold lilies:

At this spa they also recreated part of Stonehenge adding thundering waterfalls cascading over an upright circle of stones. There were benches over a warm stream for a foot bath while you read. Infrared heat lamps. Freezing natural “Tauchbecken” pools outside to take the plunge, simultaneously sending all your muscles into spasm as well as stopping your lungs, heart, and all other organs. Pools with jets and in-pool bars (remember everyone except the staff are naked).

Cocktail anyone?

One of my highlights was bathing in three separate mineral baths with calcium, selenium and the last one had salt levels rivalling the Dead Sea which made you float. They had specially designed metal handles to hold on to otherwise you’d float away into your less-than-pleased neighbour.

I also participated in two “Aufgüsse” ceremonies in which they pour water on the hot stones to make the room feel even warmer, and then with a towel (or a huge flag in the Celtic sauna) they fan every person individually so that you really feel the warmth. In the Celtic sauna there was even a throne at the top for the hottest spot in the room; one good natured older guy took the challenge. The guy waving the flag spent an extra long time on him (“the king”) and I’m impressed he didn’t pass out!

One of my favourite parts was the “Al hambra” rest area with super-comfy water beds for a nap after all of that sweating.

Here is a Youtube video of the attractions if you’re still interested ;) I’d highly recommend a visit to the sauna as part of any winter trip to Germany.

http://www.therme-erding.tv/?v=i_ytTypabY8

And while on the topic of German culture, I just can’t help but provide you with the following link regarding a controversial new beer name the Germans have registered in the EU:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,686305,00.html

Hamburg, Germany

In the spring I ventured up into northern Germany for the first time and visited Hamburg, an ultra-cool harbour city known for its fish market and great night life. It still made me laugh though that the local people who live in Hamburg are called Hamburgers. I met an American woman living there who claimed “she fell in with love a Hamburger” and could never leave. Despite single-digit temperatures I still had a great time in this down-to-earth, laid back city.

Hamburg has a splendid city hall/legislature (yup, Hamburg is also a German state in and of itself as well as a city).

There weren’t very many old churches or other older buildings since anything which miraculously survived the great fire of 1842 was pretty much destroyed in the firebombing of WWII. In my high school social studies class you normally heard about Dresden being destroyed, but I had no idea that Hamburg was also carpet bombed by the allies. Apparently 35,000 died in only 4 air raids in the summer of 1943 and almost a million people were left homeless after operation Gomorrha.

I did a free walking tour pointing out all sort of interesting stuff including this Kontorhaus (literally counting houses which served as office buildings), which at one time had the distinction of the being the pointiest building in the world (I tried to find the world’s current title holder, but even Google couldn’t help me there).

Stolpërstein:

These “stumbling blocks” are the work of artist Gunter Demnig and are scattered throughout Germany. They are tiny memorials for a single victim of Nazism commemorating those deported and killed, generally placed where a victim lived or worked.

I did a Großhafenrundfahrt (aren’t German words cool?) which was a tour of the historic harbour including Speicherstadt (which literally translates to “Storage-city” although it’s now a trendy place with boutiques and €4,000 a month apartments) with canals, bricks and beautiful green copper roofs. We then went through some locks and into the modern harbour with the huge container terminal. The scale of it was pretty impressive, with cranes stretching out as far as the eye could see and thousands of container boxes stacked and lying around waiting to be loaded onto ships. A huge “Cosco” ship was being loaded while I cruised by with claws, cranes, and other machinery working away.

Historic harbour:

Speicherstadt:

Container terminal:

The centre of Hamburg night life is the Reeperbahn where the Beatles played at various local clubs at the start of their career. Hamburg claims the Beatles as their own since they spent nearly two years in the city and it’s where they had their big break. John Lennon once said “I might have been born in Liverpool - but I grew up in Hamburg".

Some of the famous bands who passed through the “Star Club”:

I went on a fun pub crawl which included some clubs with live acts including this guy who had a sort of Michael-Jackson-does-Metallica persona:

It may sound unusual, but I really liked the food in Hamburg. I had the best falafel I’ve had in Europe (rivalling Calgary’s fabulous Byblos Bakery) as well authentic Baklava and a delicious curry wurst (see picture below) for only €2.60. Hamburg is definitely more affordable than Munich.

Below is a statue paying tribute to Hamburg’s favourite pirate legend Klaus Störtebeker. Störtebeker is a nickname which apparently meant “empty the mug in one gulp” in old lower German. Legend has it that he could empty a four-litre mug of beer in one gulp. I’m sure he would have been a hit at Oktoberfest. Aside from his beer-guzzling abilities, he is celebrated as being the Robin Hood of the high seas who robbed rich merchant ships and gave to the poor. He was however caught and executed along with his men in Hamburg around 1400 AD. Legend has it that he negotiated with city’s mayor to release one man per step he took after being beheaded. His headless body supposedly managed eleven steps before the executioner (paid by each head and wanting to earn the maximum possible) tripped him with an outstretched foot. Apparently the mayor ordered that all of his men be killed anyway, but Störtebeker is fondly remembered by the entire city to this day.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Home, sweet home. It’s been a busy month wrapping up the last projects at work, selling all of my belongings and holding going-away parties, but I am now back on Canadian soil and finally have a bit of time to do some back-blogging. I’ll start with a trip to Copenhagen that I took many months ago.

I got there with a cheap flight to Hamburg (more on Hamburg in the next post!) and then a train to Denmark. My train ticket just said “direct”, so I was surprised when the train drove onto a ferry and a message on the PA system came on ordering everyone out. I emerged from below deck to see hordes of blond Danish families buying duty-free perfume and alcohol (international waters means no taxes? I’m still not sure) for twenty minutes before they closed up shop. It was pretty windy, but I managed to snap one shot of the massive offshore wind farms operating on both the German and Danish borders.

Copenhagen itself was similar to how I pictured it: pretty with lots of water (whether artificial lakes or the river) and very cycling friendly. I read one description of it from a native New Zealander who marvelled at the lack of lycra; people ride around on their upright cruisers and particularly the women look like royalty in their skirts, hair unencumbered by a helmet and backs perfectly straight.

In order to get the full-Copenhagen experience I also got myself a rental cruiser, which let me at least pretend I was a local, except when pulling over to check my map every few minutes. Here’s my sweet rental ride, camouflaged against the local graffiti:

To get myself acquainted I did a bike tour in a steady drizzle. The upside was that I was the only person who showed up so it was private tour. I saw everything from the palaces of the royal family (they have two), to Parliament, to the alternative hippy/drug colony of Christiana (below, although I was much too afraid to try to take any pictures of real locals).


Like many other European cities Copenhagen used to have ramparts and city walls dating from the 13^th century, although they were taken down in the mid-19^th century to make way for wider roads and to allow for additional entry points instead of solely through the four city gates. Here is one area which used to mark an entrance to the city:


The main royal palace wasn’t too impressive from the outside (a pretty bland building, see picture below), but they do have cool guards with huge hats who are often walking around. Just like guards everywhere in the world though - no smiling allowed!


Random Danish royalty fact: all boys in direct line to the throne are alternately called Christian and Frederick. The last king was Frederick IX although the current monarch is Queen Margaret II (no rules for princess names).

The coolest part of my trip was definitely seeing the new Opera house (built in 2004), which was financed by the shipping giant Maersk and is supposed to resemble the bridge of a battleship. Here are some shots of the outside and the inside. I like the mix of wood and glass, although the ramps in the last image remind me of some strange variation on Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach except with a huge wooden apple. Sorry to those who haven’t read the book – that last comment probably made zero sense.

Emily Fowler, a violin prodigy from my elementary school, lives in Copenhagen and is part of the symphony orchestra there. She managed to score me a ticket for one night she was playing the opera “Elektra” (by Richard Strauß). I have to admit, I didn’t understand much of it (especially with their modern interpretation) although I’d like to think that I picked up some Danish reading the sub-titles flashing across the screen for two hours. But maybe I was just in that delusional tourist state where you just think you understand a foreign language when in fact you still know nothing. After the show we had a drink in a cool tiny backstage bar with velvet walls operated by the symphony and opera staff. Emily and I reminisced about Junior High and she gave me the inside scoop on the Danes. She says that they are coffee-guzzling, sun-addicted cyclists and that she is 80% there in becoming on

I also visited the Danish WWII resistance museum, learning lots of interesting little facts, including that Denmark was one of the only countries to rescue their Jewish citizens, evacuating most of them to Sweden before they were rounded up in 1943. An estimated 116 Jews died – fewer than any other occupied country.

Another great museum was the Nationalmuseet (Danish national museum). For one thing it’s free (amazing since Scandinavia is otherwise crazy-expensive) and secondly, they have a lot of cool stuff. Unfortunately I only had a few hours and made it only part way through the Danish prehistory section with literally hundreds of flint arrow heads and axe heads as well as huge stuffed animals, Viking sacrificial boats and at least ten mummies with real hair and clothes. It was kind of creepy actually. The Danes definitely aren’t too squeamish. I only got as far as the iron age (~500 B.C.) before having to leave to catch my train, just when things were getting exciting; the Viking culture was really taking off and the looting and plundering was about to begin. But I guess that’s OK – I did go to the Viking museum in Oslo where almost 100% of the artefacts on display were stolen which I felt cheapened them somehow.

Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, so you’ll just have to take my word for it about the mummies. But, I did snap an impressive piece of Danish design - self-coat checking with locks to prevent some chump from walking off with your winter jacket.

Another highlight was Lousiana. Yes, it is a state in the deep South of the US but it’s also an amazingly good modern art museum on the coast 35 km North of Copenhagen. In addition to their impressive permanent collection, a beautiful outdoor sculpture garden overlooking the sea integrates art, sea, trees and gurgling brooks. Their special exhibit while I was there was on colour in art, which really took off in the late 1800s when coloured paints became much cheaper and more widely available. Lots of Kandinsky. I was intrigued by Emil Nolde who took up watercolours to avoid the Nazis in the late 1930s in Germany. They had labelled his art “degenerate” and watercolours didn’t carry the same risk as the smell of turpentine and suspicious tubes of oil paint which could give him away.


Gleaming Lights of the Soul, by Yayoi Kusama. I waited a good 20 minutes to get into this, but I think it was worth it. Here’s the description: “To experience this art work, please enter the white box and close the door. An unending world of lights and colours will meet you, reflected in the room’s walls, ceiling and floor.

One thing I did miss out on was Copenhagen’s claim-to-fame: the little mermaid. Shortly before I arrived she was transported off to Beijing for the Expo in the China, but I suppose that’s one less cliché to photograph and show the world on my blog.

For further entertaining reading on Copenhagen and why to visit the world’s happiest country (according to one survey) I’d recommend the following link.