#forcheim

Julia and Leonie still had work for the week, so Julia’s mother Sylvia tagged in and drove me into Nuremberg for a walking tour. The tour was only okay, and Sylvia and I both wondered aloud why we weren’t seeing some of the things both in our view and that Sylvia remembered. Still, we got to see some neat things, mostly right around the main city square. Behold:

But perhaps some of my favorite sights were the statues and fountains. We walked right past this on the tour, which surprised me because I thought it was so cool. Someone else did as well, and asked the tour guide.

It is based on a book by a German author, and is titled Ship of Fools. You can read the attached link, but a piece of info I found out through some interwebz sleuthing is that it was intended to be a fountain, but pipes were laid incorrectly or something, and so the Ship of Fools has never had water flowing from it. Ironic, right?

Then there is this really neat fountain, known as Schöner Brunnen, which is about 60 feet tall. What is also interesting are some of the stories/myths about it. One is that it was intended to be the spire of a church and was built on the ground but when it was time to move it to the church, the townspeople demanded it stay put. Another story (which is verified and true) was that during WWII, a concrete cap was put over the whole thing to protect it, which says a lot since Nuremberg was one of the most destroyed cities of Nazi Germany during the war. Finally, there is a story about the fence that surrounds it, which was added some 120 years ago.

Apparently the metalsmith building the fence had a daughter, and she was in love with his apprentice. When they made their intentions clear to the father, he said he would never let her marry someone as untalented as the apprentice. In a rage, the apprentice made two large rings and fashioned them around the grating of the fence, and then left forever. The daughter took her own eyes out so that she would never see anyone else again, and later the father found the two rings (which can completely be rotated within the grating, which was quite talented at the time) and realized that the apprentice was indeed quite good. It is now said that spinning the rings three times can bring good or bad luck depending on the ring you spin, and that also brings fertility to women!

We made our way up a hill to a castle (those things are everywhere in Germany) and I caught some nice sights:

At that point, Sylvia and I realized that this tour was taking too long, and we were hungry (and she had work later), so we bailed and went back into the town square and past, where Sylvia said she wanted to show me a fountain, and I was so glad she did. It was my favorite piece in Nuremberg by far.

Titled Ehekarussell (Marriage Carousel), it depicts the relationship of a couple from dating to marriage to death. Things start ok, then get bad. Typical German grimness (BTW, did you known the Grimms brothers, author of the dark fairy tales are from Germany, and the word “grim” comes from that? Now you know), and of course the end scene is death. I mean, look at this face:

Or is that an orgasm? Beats me.

We headed back to Hausen, but not before I got one more pic, you know, for the ‘gram...

Once we got back, Julia and Leonie were done with their day, and we took a trip to neighboring Forcheim. And I thought I took more pics, but i think that yet again i was just in the moment. But here’s one:

Yup, the house is crooked. Julia knew the daughter of the man who owned this home, and he always wanted to have a bar/restaurant where people could congregate right along the bank of the canal and have a nice drink. Unfortunately he passed, but his daughter made his dream a reality. It only opens on weekends and for special events as all the owners/workers still have their regular day jobs. What a cool thing.

We saw a lot of neat stuff, but it was time to head back. Julia had a plan for some karaoke in nearby Erlangen. We went to a very cool cavern-type bar underground. Me, Julia, Leonie and Julia’s brother Dani, as well as Sylvia and their Ukrainian refugee friend Ira drank some beers as Dani and I opted to sing karaoke (the rest of them were COWARDS!) in what was a very long list of singers.

The KJ (BTW, Germans do not have a special word for people who run karaoke, which I was surprised at, since they have words we don’t, my favorite being schadenfreude) was one of these “I’m a totally better singer than everyone here, and even though the line is long, I’m going to sing a 7-minute rock ballad that no one’s ever heard of”-type.

Too specific?

Dani and I finally got to sing our songs, and we thought we’d try to get one more in. Half our group left for the night, leaving just me, Leonie and Dani. Time for a group pic:

The night was almost over, and I got to sing again, but suddenly Dani’s name was nowhere to be found. We had already seen the KJ playing favorites and trying to chat with “da ladies,” (which based on his Affliction-type angel wing shirt from 2010 as well as his Jesus-Christ-in-a-rock-band look, was surprising to me) so I was not at all surprised he wouldn’t want to let the guy sing that could knock him from his pedestal.

Now at this point my story is somewhat fictional, mainly because the interaction was entirely in German, and also I chose to not look at what was happening. But long story short: You do not want to fuck with Leonie. She is not afraid to say what she thinks, and she fears no one. The KJ had already said some vaguely sexist shit, and once he skipped Dani, Leonie had had enough. So she asked him something (again, I don’t know what exactly, and while Leonie has told me the story, I have already forgotten) and he gave some BS answer that Leonie did not care for, so she simply proceeded to taunt him and make fun of him. And this dude did not know what to do with it. She was a dog with a bone, and the dude started going out of his way to stay away from her. It was glorious.