Little Travel Stories: June 2015

Barleben and Zielitz

In the morning, we headed to Barleben, about 3 hours southeast, near Magdeburg. In the fields, potatoes and golden barley slowly gave way to sugar beets and feed corn. We passed through charming towns filled with Fachwerkhäuser, the half-timbered houses that resemble the Tudor-style houses of England.

The old post office in Barleben, an example of Fachwerk.

After 2 hours, we passed a sign marking the old East German border. I noticed a few more weeds, and some houses is disrepair, but overall it was much the same as the area around Hamburg. I have no idea what things were like 25 years ago, but now the Magdeburg area is lovely.

At noon we went to Zielitz, to meet more Tibkes! Here we found our cousins Beate, Doris and Steffi; Beate's husband Hartmut, daughter Kristin and son-in-law Patrick; and Doris' husband Dieter. Beate and Hartmut have a lovely house with an absolutely amazing garden. We sat next to the small pond and toasted our reunion - I haven't seen them since 2002, and I think it has been just as long for everyone else.

Prost! (Margot, Marianne, Doris, Linda)

Doris, Linda, Hartmut, Steffi, Beate, Dieter

The vegetable garden

Espaliered fruit trees

Patrick and Kristin, hard at work on lunch

We enjoyed a delicious lunch - more classic German food. Potato salad, bratwurst, grilled chicken, salad - all very good!

After lunch we walked over to the cemetery to visit Uncle Rolf and Tante Erika.

Germany cemeteries are beautiful. Each grave is covered with flowers. Water and gardening tools are stationed throughout - you insert a Euro to unlock the tools.

Later we looked at old pictures - here is a great one of Jurgen, Erika, Rolf and Minna - my Oma:

I cannot fail to mention the magnificent kuchen - strawberry, chocolate and peach.

These strawberries are from their garden.

The peaches tasted so fresh!

Chocolate, frosting, coconut.

Here we all are:

And more pretty flowers:

Tomorrow - some sightseeing in Magdeburg.

I will leave you with a few interesting sights from Sunday.

Zielitz is home to a potash-rich salt mine. After the potash is extracted, the salt is dumped. Over the years the process has created a huge salt mountain that looms over the town. In this photo you can see heavy equipment at work on the mountain:

The salt pile has earned the nickname "Mount Kalimanjaro." (Kali is potash in German.) You can visit the site - more information at www.kalimandscharo.com.

From the top of Mount Kalimanjaro you will be able to see the Mittellandkanal, a serious feat of engineering. This elevated waterway stretches more than 200 miles across Germany. Roads pass under it, and it crosses above the Elbe, on a bridge.

There's a canal up there:

We passed under the canal on our way home, and decided to stop to take a look. The first stream we encountered, however, was not the canal.

This man is not admiring the view.

Neither are we.

We were happy to put all these steps between us:

We were just in time to see a barge go by.

The view from atop the canal:

An Ahlerstedt story (Margot)

When he was 10 or 12, my brother Rolf went to Ahlerstedt for a visit. When it was time to leave, Uncle Klaus gave Rolf a rucksack full of apples. Off he went on the five-mile walk to the train station in Harsefeld, with the bag of apples over his shoulder. The farm dog, a German shepherd, saw him leave and ran after him. The dog followed Rolf down the road, barking and barking. Rolf threw down an apple, and the dog barked. He threw down another, and the dog barked. Rolf walked toward the station, tossing apples at the barking dog, until his bag was empty. When the last apple hit the ground, the dog turned around and trotted back home.

Rolf went home with an empty rucksack and a long face. Uncle Klaus gave me those apples! he cried, I wasn't stealing them!

Tibketreffen in Ahlerstedt

On Saturday morning we went to Borghorst, in Ahlerstedt, to meet the Tibkes.

Ahlerstedt, about five miles from Harsefeld, was founded more than 900 years ago. It used to be primarily a farming village, but nowadays only two farms are left. One of them is Borghost, Ahlerstedt's oldest farm, and the ancestral home of the Tibke family.

My mother grew up in Hamburg, but she and her siblings have many good memories of their visits to Borghorst. Here we met Gunther and Brigitte Tibke, the current owners, and their three children; Hilde, Frieda and Anneliese, my mother's cousins; Hans, Frieda's husband, and their daughter . The ladies made us an AMAZING lunch: beef stew with tiny mushrooms, new potatoes, red cabbage, and spaetzle. For dessert, a vanilla custard topped with tart raspberry sauce.

After lunch we took a tour of the farm. Gunther and Brigitte have 200 cows. The cows are milked twice a day, 40 cows at a time. The cows amble into the milking barn, line up and reverse into the milking bays. Each cow has a microchip; the chip transmits the cow's ID number to the milking terminal. While the machine milks the cow, a flow meter measures the volume of milk produced, and transmits this information to a computer. This way the farmers can track the output of each cow. When the milking is done, the cows amble back to their barn, and the next shift ambles in. It was so interesting! But it must really be a lot of work tending to so many animals twice a day, every day of the week. So say thanks to the dairy farmer the next time you pour milk on your cereal!

When we came back to the house, another feast - this time kaffee und kuchen. Oh, but what kuchen! I couldn't believe my eyes. The only problem - my stomach is too small!

We sat and drank coffee, and listened to the cousins tell stories. I took a German class in the spring, in the hopes that I would understand a little bit on this trip. When my mother, or Marianne, Jurgen and Inge spoke, I could follow along, at least with the subject if not the details. But when the others spoke I couldn't even catch a word. I thought, Is it because my mother and the others are throwing English words in sometimes? Or is my German really zero? I found out later that the Ahlerstedters were speaking Plattdeutsch - even my mother couldn't understand it!

When I was little, people would always say Oh! Your mother is the German lady! I didn't understand how they knew, because I couldn't hear her accent. Much later, when I came home after several years away, I could hear that, yes, she really does sound German. During today's visit, so many things felt so familiar and right - the way the table was set, the table cloth, the food, the unhurried, easy conversation over coffee. For the first time I perceived my own German accent. Although Germany isn't my home, it still feels like a homecoming. And it's only day two!

Some photos:

Marianne and Jurgen in front of the tile stove