Himmelfahrt

Which way to Himmel?

It's a rather widely-acknowledged observation that the U.S. population is, percentagewise, significantly more religiously active than that of western Europe. Last I read, somewhere around ten percent of the German population regularly attends religious services, as compared with about fifty percent of Americans (or more, depending on the area). Germans even sometimes roll their eyes at the apparent crusader's fervor that spouts regularly from our president; raise an eyebrow at the "In God We Trust" printed on the backs of our currency; and laugh outright at our Puritan prudishness (for example, the Janet Jackson Superbowl scandal that so rocked our media boats barely registered on the European radar. "So? It's a breast!" scoffed your Average European, before putting out his cigarette to board a high-speed train).

And yet, German Catholics are proud of having a German pope. "Religion" is a regular subject in school, just like Math and Geography. And every month of May, there are a slew of government holidays taken right out of the Christian calendar.

One of these is Himmelfahrt -- literally, "the Journey to Heaven" (Christ's Ascension) -- which occurred last Thursday. Most people get a four-day weekend out of this; and, being springtime, the result is that seemingly everyone in the country decides to go on a mini-vacation. Including us.

Unfortunately, this does mean that the Wednesday before Himmelfahrt is comparable to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Bert and I booked our tickets to Chemnitz way too late to get a reserved seat on the train, and so when the shiny white beast glided up to the platform, we crushed in with the rest of the masses, immediately sat ourselves down at the on-board restaurant, and ostentatiously perused the menu until everyone had packed inside and the ICE pulled smoothly away. It was insane -- people were sitting in the aisles, in the doorways, on top of their luggage in those passageways between cars! So we ordered one beer apiece and spent the trip justifying our presence in the restaurant seats by slowly sipping one mouthful of Hefeweizen at a time over the next four hours.

Of course, though, any train that is teeming with humanity is also going to be a train that gets delayed, rerouted, and whatever other technical problems can serve to make the trip for those sitting in the aisles as long and uncomfortable as possible. It was almost one in the morning by the time we finally arrived in Chemnitz, and were picked up by Heidi's boyfriend, Jens, who thankfully supplied us with another much-needed beer before settling us in cozily on the couch. We must've slept more than nine hours before waking up late the next morning to bright sunshine and birds outside.

Driving to Heaven is as easy as traveling down any road in the Erzgebirge.

Traditionally, Himmelfahrt Thursday is also sometimes observed as Männertag, or "Men's Day" (especially in the formerly communist East, where religion was definitely not acknowledged by the government!). As Bert and Jens explained it, this is when guys get together to hang out, go hiking, barbecue, and usually drink lots and lots of beer. Fascinated, I asked when the next "Frauentag" was, and they exchanged guilty looks.

"Well, technnically there is a Frauentag... but it's in the winter sometime, and it's not a day off," they ended lamely.

Oh, I see. So all of society acknowledges a day when men get to go out and celebrate their man-ness by hanging out with friends and drinking beer all day, but there's not really an equivalent for the other gender. Although in principal, I actually quite like the idea of having a Men's Day: with all the focus in the last few decades on trying to even out the playing field for women (albeit understandably so, given that this entire half of the population was widely considered property for many thousand years!), it's good for men to get a little celebration, too, just for being the marvellous creatures they are. However, I still found it surprising that, in the Land of Forests and Beer, it never seems to have crossed anyone's mind that women like a long hike and a bottle of suds, too. I huffed and said as much; and they looked at my big bowl of oatmeal, frought with steaming healthfulness, and laughed.

We did indeed spend Männertag hiking and overeating, though. In fact, we did that all weekend. On Thursday afternoon, we drove once again to the lovely village of Sehma, where Bert's parents live, and shared some wine with them in his uncle's back garden before wandering over to Olaf and Corinna's for more pizza and beer. Then on Friday, we caught a train to the top of the Fichtelberg.

A steam-engined train!

An open car in a train is also a heavenly way to journey upward.

It was awesome. We sat in an open car in the sunshine, right behind the engine, and got occasionally ashed- or steamed-on as we chooga-chooga'ed through the beautiful countryside. We finally hopped out in Oberwiesenthal (at the end of the line) and walked a bit through the town... before seeing a Sommerrodelbahn at the foot of the ski slopes! This is a slick metal half-tube that wends down the hillside: each person gets plopped down on their own little cart -- a tiny wheeled platform just big enough for your butt, feet, and a handbrake in the middle -- and then whoooosh, you fly down the hill in this precarious trench, sliding so far up the sides around every curve that you're sure you're inches away from joining a pile of other riders' remains on the outside of the track. I, being smaller, bulleted my way as fast as I could through the whole thing, pushing so far forward on the brake/go-stick thing that I was practically bending over on my belly (and consequently also better able to handle curves). Bert, however, with his nearly two meters, apparently had a scarier time of it. I hopped off at the end, exhilarated; and yet it was several moments later before he came carefully rolling around the last curve, sitting straight up, hair on end, long legs bent so that his knees were practically touching his ears, and eyes wide with apprehension.

The way to paradise is straight and narrow.

Now that we had conquered speed, we decided to test our fear of heights by traveling the rest of the way up the mountain on the ski lift. At the top, it was bright and sunny, and families and hikers ran around with ice cream cones and spied through telescopes at the 360-degree view of the Erzgebirge.

We took the high road.

We shared a beer, enjoyed the view, and then hiked an hour or so down to the Czech border to have lunch at a cafe on the other side.

Bert showed his German ID, which the border guards barely glanced at before waving him through.

I handed over my passport, and they took it as if I were handing them a fizzing black sphere. The guard opened it carefully; compared me to the picture; inspected every page; showed it to his fellow; then, with a hesitant nod, handed it back.

"Don't I get a stamp?" I asked hopefully.

Suddenly the suspicious expression broke into an amused smirk. "Well, you have a visa, which usually doesn't require a stamp."

"But the stamps are the coolest part," I protested. "How else am I supposed to show off?"

"All right, all right." He opened the passport back up and carefully pressed a stamp into one of the empty cells. I regarded it happily as we crossed into the Czech Republic. Stamps are the modern equivalent of stickers on a suitcase!

Lunch was... well, drool. We sat outside with Bert's mom and uncle -- who drove the car over to join us, for some mysterious reason opting to skip the steam engine, Sommerrodelbahn, ski lift, and hour's hike -- and we feasted on goulash, stroganoff, and delicious black beer. Then we did a little grocery shopping (groceries are cheap, there!), poked around a black market where we were offered cigarettes every five feet (I am not kidding!) and then drove back to Sehma, where Bert and I got ready to go take a look around Annaberg-Buchholz at night. It was beautiful. The nearest big city is Chemnitz, 45 kilometers away, and so the stars are thick and bright. At this time of year, too, the sun goes down very late, and so the long, blue twilight bathes everything in a dreamlike glow: the fields are intense shades of green, the trees rustle dimly overhead, and the stars and silver crescent moon glitter in a sky that is somehow still bright, even though the sun is long gone. We viewed the town and scenery from a hilltop before wandering around the cobblestoned streets and poking in and out of cozy pubs.

The next day, Saturday, we had a leisurely coffee before just generally taking it easy: running some errands and stopping by to visit various people Bert had grown up with. It's odd to see people in Sehma waving at each other as they drive by on the street -- "Oh, there's Frau So-and-So. Guten Morgen, Frau So-and-So!" -- and just, well, knowing each other! Bert and Alex drove around and pointed out various unassuming little spots, regaling me with stories about how this person went skinny-dipping there and got caught by a bunch of girls, how that person fell over this gate after a night at the pub and blamed the damage on sheep, how this is the field where they trained for various sports, etc. etc. In other words, they grew up there. Alex, especially, being one of the town's two bakers, knows everybody. Which is odd for the vagabond American military brat to wrap her head around. I'm not sure I could live in a town where there is so little privacy. But it sure is cute to come visit!

That evening, we had a little cookout on Bert's uncle Gert's back patio, and it was, like everything else, lovely. And, like everything else, swimming in beer and food! We stuffed ourselves on pork chops in onion and mushroom sauce, Bratwurst with spicy mustard, soft seedy dark bread, potato salad with pickles, cucumber salad, and of course, cold foamy suds. Olaf, Corinna, Alex, and his girlfriend, Anja, also joined us, and we sat and drank under the night sky until rather late. Then Bert and I had a half-crocked philosophical discussion on the walk home through the bright starry fields.

The next day, we lazed around in the Lißner's garden. There was breakfast outside with the twittering birds, an hour or so in the hammock, and a pedicure from Bert's mom (who's studying podiatry) before it was time to pack up and meet up with our ride back to the Pfalz. This is a girl who works in Ludwigshafen, but who commutes every weekend back to Cranzahl in the Erzgebirge to stay with her family. She is very sweet -- but a machine! The drive back was six and a half hours long, and the whole way, she took not one sip of water, not one bite of anything to munch, and not one pee break. We could have forced the issue, but it would really have been forcing the issue to get her to stop. Instead, we just sat trapped in the back seat and tried to think of something else. We practically ran each other over in the desperate sprint for the bathroom after we were mercifully dropped off outside Bert's door.

So, that was that. All torturous pee-break-less rides home aside, our Himmelfahrt really was a little Journey to Heaven. :)

(And here are even more pictures!)