Shaking The Disease

From August 1984 through the summer of 1985, I lived with my family in Saarland, in the southwestern corner of West Germany. A French protectorate in the years following the Second World War, Saarland was a strange place for a family’s sabbatical year. It felt more like a cul-de-sac on the edge of German-speaking Europe than it did the “heart of Europe,” the notion underlying its contemporary self-presentation. Back then, many of my classmates had never crossed the border into France, which was just two or three miles away. The border felt sealed, even though passport checks were perfunctory and even though French words enlivened local dialects.

Saarland was a good launching pad. The dollar was strong and my parents’ modest discretionary income went far. We jumped on trains, sometimes on consecutive weekends, to explore the surrounding regions and beyond.

In the summer of 1985, we made a particularly exciting journey to Karl-Marx-Stadt (earlier and now again Chemnitz) in East Germany to visit some cousins. My father had become strongly interested in genealogy over the previous decade, and his research had yielded friendships with a slew of West German relatives. We had gotten to know one distant cousin especially well, and he invited us to stay with his aunt and her family near Karl-Marx-Stadt.To visit them we first traveled across West Germany to the border with East Germany and then continued on through East Germany’s train corridor to West Berlin. There was a friction in West Berlin that I hadn’t seen in other European cities, a counterculture that seemed stable and permanent, rooted in its weirdness. We walked near the scary, modern Wall, and combed through the city’s sights.

After a few days in Berlin, we took the train south to Karl-Marx-Stadt. Shortly after we crossed into East Germany, four teenagers boarded the train. There was a flash of negativity about them, a subtle alienation. These teenagers were not like West German kids. They were quiet, first of all, and apparently shy, glancing uncomfortably at us. I couldn’t stop looking at them, drinking all their details in – their hair, their clothes, their attitudes. They were less in-your-face than their West German contemporaries but their defiance was unmistakable. One of them held a little transistor radio. He and I faced each other, our eyes meeting above the seats.

A few minutes in the radio began to play “Shake the disease” by Depeche Mode, which was a big hit that summer. We both started to mouth the words, still viewing each other tentatively. We sang the song silently, observing one another throughout. Along the way he lost his shyness. I was filled with a sense of wonder. Previously I’d considered how fractured we were from another, and now it seemed as if we understood each other very well. The bridge between our two adolescences was this song, bound up in Martin Gore’s strange pairings of words: “you know how hard it is for me to shake the disease / that takes hold of my tongue in situations like these.”

I recall many incidents from the rest of that visit. We met relatives. We witnessed a small wedding in a village church and my mother cried. We walked in the woods. We had difficulty changing money. We drove to a tourist restaurant in the forests near the border with Czechoslovakia. The one completely focused memory, however, was that experience on the train. For that song’s four minutes and 48 seconds, two 15-year-olds shared something. It was everything. It was nothing. It belonged to us.

[Image: Flickr | Hunter-Desportes]

The World’s Prettiest Destination Tunnels

Size matters – with tunnels, anyway. Most lists of the world’s most spectacular designs pant over the longest passageways, like Norway’s Laedral Tunnel, currently the record-holder at 15.25 miles.

But beauty before distance, I say. Give me the arched canopy of tart pink cherry trees in Bonn, Germany, over a cold engineering marvel anytime. Or Shanghai’s psychedelic light show inside the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (pictured above). Or a simple rock cutaway in South Dakota with a million-dollar view. To that end – short trip though it may be – here’s a photo tour of the most striking destination tunnels.

Cherry Blossoms in Bonn, Germany
There’s something poetic about the very existence of tree tunnels, formed by nature instead of built to conquer it.


[Photo credit: K.A.I. via Flickr]

Rua Gonçalo de Carvalho in Porto Alegre, Brazil
This high-reaching green carpet in the middle of the city, formed by more than 100 tipuana trees pressing up against tall buildings for several blocks, was at risk of being uprooted to make way for more development before residents won a fight to preserve it. Now the tree tunnel is a protected heritage and environmental site.


[Photo credit: Ander Vaz via Flickr] For more leafy canopies, see World Geography’s photo gallery of tree tunnels.

Custer State Park in South Dakota
Three tunnels on the Iron Mountain Road scenic drive frame a view of Mt. Rushmore in the distance, like a spyglass. They are also cut out just wide enough for a motor coach to squeeze through.


[Photo credit: Devin Westhause via Flickr]

Bund Sightseeing Tunnel in Shanghai
A light show flashes along video walls that line the entire length of this tunnel connecting two major sights, and kids love it.


[Photo credit: Thewamphyri1 via Flickr]

Traboules in Lyon, France
These ancient passageways in the old quarter and the Croix-Rousse stretch the definition of “tunnel,” but we can make room for such graceful architectural details, and history – the French used them to elude the German occupation during World War II.


[Photo credit: Emmrichard via Flickr]

Have you visited any of these beauties, or others that belong on the list?

[Top photo credit: Synchroni via Flickr]

Hangar Now Serves As A Sunny Escape (PHOTOS)

In the middle of snowy Germany, a former aircraft hangar serves as a sunny escape from the cold. Inside the mammoth building – which is tall enough to enclose the Statue of Liberty – is a Caribbean-influenced resort, Tropical Islands.

Besides a beach, a rainforest and a lagoon, Tropical Islands has seven spa zones inspired by various regions of the world, 13 bars and restaurants, and a golf course. There are also 200 rooms, plus an area on the beach for camping. On their website, the complex claims to be “Europe’s largest tropical holiday world.”

Located about 37 miles south of Berlin, Tropical Islands has a maximum capacity of 6,000 visitors per day. The hangar is the largest freestanding hall in the world, originally designed to protect large airships from the elements. It was purchased by the Malaysian corporation Tanjong in 2003, and officially opened its doors less than a year later.

The flora inside Tropical Islands makes up the biggest indoor rainforest in the world. It it home to around 50,000 plants representing 600 different species, some of which are rare.

Although the resort first opened in 2004, these photographs were taken just last week and were first brought to our attention by USA Today. Click through the gallery to see more.

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Editor’s note: A former version of this story mistakenly referred to the hangar as Soviet owned. Although the land was owned by the Soviet Army from 1945 until 1992, Cargolifter AG bought the former military airfield to construct airships, but the company went bankrupt in 2002.

[Photo credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images]

Bryan Adams Opens Photography Exhibition In Düsseldorf

For any child of the ’80s, Bryan Adams is that clean-cut Canadian rock star with a steady string of hits. While he’s not as big as he once was, he’s still making great music and going on tour.

What many people don’t know about him is that he’s also an accomplished photographer. He’s been published in magazines such as Esquire and Interview and has done numerous shows at top venues such as the Saatchi Gallery in London.

Adams takes advantage of his superstar status to get other famous musicians to pose for him. Check out the image of Amy Winehouse below. He’s also photographed Queen Elizabeth II and got that image used on a Canadian postage stamp.

Now his latest show has opened at the NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf, Germany. “Bryan Adams – Exposed” features a cross-section of his best work from the past couple of decades. Some 150 portraits of artists are included as well as numerous new works. Some of his newer images go beyond his circle of superstar friends to portray wounded British servicemen from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, like this image of Private Karl Hinett.”I took my first photos with a small camera that belonged to my parents,” Adams said in a press release issued by the NRW-Forum. “The subjects of my first film, in the mid 1970s, were concert photos of the Beach Boys, parking lot walls, my girlfriend in the bathroom, my Mom, my piano, just everyday things, but exactly the things I could see around me.”

“Bryan Adams – Exposed” runs until May 22.

[Images copyright Bryan Adams]

Goetz Of The Iron Hand: On The Trail Of Renaissance Germany’s Biggest Badass

Renaissance Germany was a violent place. A patchwork of different kingdoms, principalities, and baronies with constantly changing allegiances, the land was wracked with near-constant warfare.

The people in charge were some pretty rough characters. By far the roughest was Götz von Berlichingen, also known as Götz of the Iron Hand. You can also spell it “Goetz” if your browser hiccups at the sight of an umlaut.

His last name, Berlichingen, was for many years used as a popular euphemism for the phrase er kann mich am Arsche lecken, which translates as “he can lick my ass.” This gives some insight into his character.

Götz was born around 1480 in Württemberg. As a nobleman, he was part of the vicious power play that was part of daily life for the rich and influential in Germany. He set off to war while still in his teens and fought in various conflicts, eventually forming his own band of mercenaries.

In 1504, while besieging the city of Landshut, a cannonball hit his sword, swung it around, and caused poor Götz to cut off his own forearm. Not one to be deterred by minor setbacks, Götz had a prosthetic arm made so that he could continue campaigning.

The arm was a masterpiece of Renaissance design, as you can see from this old manuscript drawing reproduced on Wikimedia Commons. It was strong enough to hold a weapon and precise enough to hold a quill pen. Various buttons and levers worked springs so that it had much of the range of motion of a real hand. You can see some images of it at work here, and a detailed look at the mechanics in the gallery. It was so advanced that it served as the inspiration for prosthetic arms for German physicians after World War I, more than 400 years after it was made.

%Gallery-177598%We know a lot about Götz’s exploits thanks to an autobiography he wrote. In it he estimates that he took part in 15 feuds on the behalf of himself and his family, and numerous others for allies. Goethe was so inspired by Götz’s violent story that he wrote a play about him. The one-armed warrior remained an icon of German manliness and during World War II the SS named a division after him.

You can still see some of the places Götz lived and fought. Hornberg Castle, in Baden-Württemberg, was his home from the time he bought it in 1517 until his death in 1562. The castle, shown below, has a museum containing his armor. The castle itself is now a hotel and restaurant that offers a “knight’s feast” with the hint that Götz himself may make an appearance and have a drink with you.

To see his famous hand, you need to go to Burg Jagsthausen, another castle-turned hotel and restaurant.

[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]