Advertisement
Published: November 15th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Sunday:
Nothing is the same as it was at home but it doesn’t feel that different. It’s maybe because I’ve been here before. This time though, there’s no hurry to do anything and I find myself spending weekend hours in the monastery garden at the top of the hill that overlooks work, either reading or just sitting in the winter sun watching the birds. Or, I frequently lie on the floor of one of the churches in the old town and just look at those ceilings. Or, I sit high above the city on the verandah of the Museum der Modern. And every day I walk for miles – my habits have hardly changed.
Except, I can’t understand what anyone says unless they’re gracious enough to speak to me in English. At school, everyone speaks around four languages each. It’s both fascinating and humbling that they all slip into different languages, often in the same sentence and most of them understand what’s going on. And my English is now slipping into Euro English – you’ll know what I mean if you work in a multi lingual place that uses English as its main language. Where does ‘also’ go in
that sentence again?
I’m used to this town already which is why I think I haven’t written about it but I began to realise today, that actually, it is different to London, and you might like to see a few things that I’ve seen. And, although there’s a river running through the town and there’s a cathedral that’s about where the similarities end between London and Salzburg.
The old town here has a very long history of religious buildings, fortresses, monasteries, convents, catacombs, the rebuilding of, accidental burning of, Roman, Baroque, Rococo styles, a war history, a direct bombing, endless reconstructions and rebuilding again until, after about 1,300 years, the old town has been placed on the Unesco World Heritage Site listing. There are some magnificent churches and this time, I’ve been in them for requiems, recitals and services – just to listen – really listen, but my mind wanders and although it all sounds beautiful, it doesn’t hold me – for long.
At work, I had this interesting, very brief, conversation with J, about navigators. She’s just written a book about navigating and how she thinks it will become a way of life - how people
will navigate by joining universities for a while, or new companies, cities, life-styles, then move on. A little how I’m living now. I thought her concept was really interesting and hadn’t looked at my life as navigating around but for a few years I suppose it is what I’ve been doing. I also remember a conversation last year with Tracey whilst we were in Qing He’s tea house in Suzhou and she said that we both navigate around but it wouldn’t do for us all to live this way. I can’t remember why, I think it was something about if all the world on the move - that really wouldn’t work. So I don’t think everyone can be a navigator, or even wants to be.
Anyway, I was enjoying these tiny conversations with J on Weds afternoon but on Thursday morning she quit the job, after three days, saying there were other ways to kill herself. I couldn’t believe it. The job was tough but what about notice? We can laugh about it now. There’s a new plan and I think it will work really well. I like the girls at work. We’re working more and more together and
I like that.
I moved house last weekend to a small apartment on Rudolf Biebl Strabe which I embraced because it’s a nice walk down by the river, or through the Mirabell park to work. The only thing is that when it was ‘sold’ to me, I was told that is has everything and ‘it’s so neat, even the hoover is in an old German suitcase’. And already I had the wonder of ‘the suitcase’.
When I saw the pictures of the place, I just felt a hint of alarm at the sight of the suitcase because it was exactly what I’d feared. It’s the kind we’ve all seen every time we see images of the Jewish population being evacuated during the war. And let’s be honest, we’re on the border with Germany, an hour an a half away from Munich and a further 30minutes from Dachau. I know you may laugh at me being upset by a suitcase – but honestly, where did it come from and who had it and how did it come to be for sale in Germany? Needless to say, I’m never going to open it and hoover in this place. I give
it a very respectful, wide space and I have never touched it; not even accidentally. When I mentioned this at work, no one had ever thought this way about an old German suitcase of this kind. Why not? Didn’t you see the pictures? I can show you, if you want.
On the way home from work on Friday, I booked my ticket at the Salzburg DB Bahn ticket office for a ticket to Dachau. I’m going next weekend. No one at work really wants to talk about the fact that there was a Jewish concentration camp less than 2 hours away from here. In fact, no one even thinks about it or wants to talk about it at all – not even the man who sold me the train ticket. And even the man from Munich that I met on a bench today has never been to Dachau and he only lives 18km away from it. When I sat down, he was writing in his little book. His random push-bike that was piled high with bags and sticks was leaning against the bench behind him. He had leather flip flops on, in November. But today, you could honestly have
been forgiven if you’d mistaken the weather for spring.
We started talking about how people see things, or actually don’t see things properly. And, how he had no plans today except to cycle towards the mountain in the distance and then get back for the return train to Munich. He said that he used to rush from one place to another and do everything superficially but now, he just aims to do the one thing and do it well and see what happens along the way – that thing may change to another thing but whatever it is, he does it properly. He pointed to all the other hypothetical people of the world rushing from one place to another not really taking anything in properly. We talked for two hours about everything and anything. Amongst other things, he told me that the colour of love is not red, it is green.
Eventually, I have to admit, I talked to him about the suit case at home. He understood why I wondered about its history and that for me, having seen so many similar suitcases in all of those harrowing images of Jewish families being evacuated, it symbolized everything
about the terrible fate of those people during the war. And I think my fears are not unfounded especially bearing in mind where we are geographically and what happened around here.
Anyway, his name is Thomas, he’s probably around 65 years old and of sound mind though probably not many people would think so having heard that he threw his television out of his window in 1979, and if he wakes in the night he only uses candles because ‘you can see the light by the shadows.’ And he’s thinking of entirely re-roofing his house in another style though the neighbour doesn’t agree.
I’ve arranged to meet him next Saturday in the very centre of the 4 metre compass which is apparently on the floor of the Munich station; after I’ve been to Dachau. He drew me a full diagram of how the whole floor space of the station looks so I won’t get lost. Hopefully, I’ll have other things than a suitcase to talk about.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0361s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb