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Wanderung 5

Happy Haus for Holt’s in Hamburg.

February - April 2004

April 20 - From Moelln to Ratzeburg

The morning was forecast to be sunny, so we decided to do one of the Moelln walks since we knew the total time out there was just a bit over an hour and we could get a reasonably early start. We walked over to Wohltorf to catch the train to Buechen because it was just over the boundary for the next region and Monika had figured that we would only have to pay 10.40 Euro to get to Moelln from there. That gave us a net saving of 4 Euro over buying our tickets at Reinbek, and we found out that walking over there was almost exactly the same time as the walk down to the Reinbek station.

The train switches at Aumuehle and Buechen went exactly on schedule, and we had our start booklets stamped and were on our way by 10:30. The first 2-3 kilometers went straight north along the Haupstrasse (Main Street), across a bridge, and up at 100 steps to the top of a bluff where we had a very nice view back over the old town section. As in many of these old German towns, the church was on the highest point in town and its spire stood out alone against the bright blue sky, dominating the skyline. Some old millponds in front of us contrasted nicely with the red brick and tile roofs of the buildings surrounding the church, and the total effect was very pretty.

From that point on our walk was entirely in the woods until we reached Ratzeburg 11 kilometers to the north. We both like taking walks in the woods because it is esthetically pleasing, but I was also very thankful for soft paths that were easy on the soles of my feet. One mystery that had been puzzling me on all of our walks in the woods and in towns is where are all the squirrels? In seven weeks of walking around Germany we had seen only two squirrels—Monika was so excited when she saw the second one that she took a picture of it! That is such a contrast to the Northern Virginia area where squirrels are in pretty much in every back yard and every small patch of forest. So why are there almost no squirrels in northern Germany? The climate would not seem to be out of their habitable range and we have, after all, seen two of them so that’s not the reason. Competition from some other small rodent could be the reason, but I have not seen any evidence of that either. The only other thing I can think of is that some quite efficient predator is keeping down their numbers, but which one is it? Possibly foxes or owls are doing it, but I really don’t know.

One thing I did hear and see was the German equivalent of a mockingbird. Since I knew U.S. mockingbirds would not be here, I was very surprised to hear a bird chirping out imitations of all the other birds’ calls in a rapid sequence, just like the U.S. mockingbird does. I finally got a good look at one of these critters, and the bird is not much to look at. It is about the same size as a U.S. mockingbird but rather than the striking gray and white pattern of the U.S. bird it is dark brown on top with a lighter, perhaps mottled, brown underneath.

As we left Moelln area, our route passed an old memorial to soldiers who died in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and a cemetery where soldiers who had died in the Napoleonic wars of 1813 were buried! A brass plaque gave the names and districts of origin for each of the soldiers. Not only that, but someone had clearly laid a nice wreath on it, so altho the cemetery was located in the middle of the woods someone was obviously still remembering the soldiers. We had sat down on a nearby bench to eat the sandwiches we had brought with us while I pondered the implications of that. How far back in history do these types of war memorials go? Is someone still caring for the graves of soldiers from the Thirty Years War? Farther back? Can countries really forgive and forget the wars with other countries?

Along the way to Ratzeburg we saw a pasture which contained the European version of the bison or buffalo, according to Monika. They were way at the other end of the pasture so I couldn’t get a really good look at them, but they seemed to be really shaggy, horned beasts. We crossed over an abandoned railroad on an old bridge, and I was surprised they hadn’t already converted it to a hiker-biker path like so many other trails in Germany. From there it was a hop, skip, and jump, (or in our case limp, stagger, and careen) to the lakeside trail that we followed into Ratzeburg. It was over 3 hours by this point and we hadn’t found any place to eat along the way, so we were really dragging as we trudged around to the top of the lake where the Youth Hostel, our midway checkpoint, was located. We finally found it, but nobody was there to stamp our booklets! That was disappointing, but we just noted the fact in our walk booklets and slowly wandered into the downtown area looking for a reasonable place to eat. The restaurants were all rather high priced in Ratzeburg, so we settled for sandwich rolls in a bakery on one side of the town square.

We were tired enough by this time that we avoided any unnecessary steps, so we patiently waited at the town square for the bus to the train station, took the chain of trains back to Reinbek and again patiently waited for the bus up the hill to the house. Since the bus let us off at Aldi, we just detoured a few steps to pick up pizzas for dinner and other necessary food before the last final steps to the house. Ah, it was so relaxing to put up my feet after dinner and watch “Berlin, Berlin” and “Das Quiz” before the even news.

I read in the paper that Bush wanted to construct an international strike force of 75,000 mercenary soldiers under U.S. command. Fascinating. I expect the political calculus is the same as the French used when they created the French Foreign Legion and used it in Vietnam and Algeria; namely, that the death of foreign mercenaries is far more acceptable than the death of citizens. To be blunt, you lose fewer votes with dead mercenaries. But boy how dangerous it would be to have 75,000 foreign, battle-ready troops at the sole command of the President with no other allegiances or loyalties to hold them in check. What a convenient weapon to use in domestic as well as foreign disputes as the President would think necessary. This move by Bush is not just contradicting George Washington’s warning against having standing armies in peace time, it’s trampling all over it. What would Washington think of bringing the Hessians back to the U.S., but this time under control of the President rather than as mercenaries for the English crown!

The Tageschau news report included an interview with a German mother and her attorney that had brought suit against the imprisonment of her son at Guantanamo Naval Base for the last two years. The case had finally worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was hearing oral arguments in the case. Her attorney said that he could not imagine that the Supreme Court would decide that it was OK to keep someone in custody for two years without any legal process. He may be right, but he is not reckoning with the fact that this is a Republican Supreme Court and Bush is a Republican President. I was happy to see signs of protesters in the video clip that said “no concentration camps in the U.S.”. Truly the idea that absolutely no legal rules apply if a prison is not on U.S. soil simply means that the administration could establish as many gulags as it wanted as long as they were on our foreign military bases rather than inside the borders of the U.S. I was, as they say in Germany, pressing my thumbs hoping that the Supreme Court would establish some kind of rule of law for the prisoners at Guantanamo. Pressing thumbs for good luck is the equivalent of the English crossing of fingers or standing on tiptoes in Botswana—interesting how different cultures use different gestures for good luck.

Copyright 2004 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Prolog Map Epilog

February 2004
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March 2004
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April 2004
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