Breaking Free

This weekend brought a monumental first step in the path toward semi-normalcy here in Germany. I hopped a train and left Starnberg – the first time doing this since very early March. And actually, I hopped two trains. One, Saturday morning. And the other that I’m on right now (Sunday). We are stopped at the Freising station while the train I’m on makes its way to Regensburg. It’s about 12:00 noon, the skies are cloudy, and the streets are wet from the recent rains. I have my bike with me today and plan to check-out the well-preserved Roman city of Regensburg while also getting out on my bike and checking out nearby countryside which is, most prominently, dissected by the Danube River.

Yesterday I left my bike at home and went to Stuttgart – about a 2 ½-3 hour ride from Starnberg to the west. Initially I chose Stuttgart because it’s in a different Germany state – not Bavaria – and they had announced a local decision to allow museums to open on May 6^th. In Bavaria, this will be happening on the 11^th. I thought – wander the city, hit a couple of museums, chill out in a place other than Starnberg. Well, as it turned out, the only museum that was actually open was the Mercedes Benz Museum. Not being much of a car guy, I skipped it and instead chose to just do a ton of walking.

Stuttgart impressed me. It has a ton of pedestrian-only streets, a huge, sprawling park and a beautiful, bustling square in the center of town. There was also a large open-air street market in much of the town, which made for some good people watching.

It’s clear here in Germany that everyone is damn sick of the lockdown – duh, right? People were everywhere, and not really doing a ton of social distancing, I might add. Yes, lines for shops forced people to wait 1.5 meters apart, and yes, shops required masks, but in the outdoor spaces you’d be hard pressed to notice we were living in a pandemic. People picnicked and sat together, quite closely in a lot of cases. I noticed hugs and handshakes, and what seemed like “back to normal” behavior. I did my best to steer clear of the crowds, and I always put my mask on when I felt I couldn’t. I felt safe enough. It was just interesting to see people basically doing what they always did prior to Coronavirus. We’ll see if numbers start spiking up again in the next few weeks. I sure hope they don’t!!!

Speaking of how Germany is handling the virus these days, here is an overview of how things will change in the upcoming weeks…

• First of all, states are allowed to set their own rules, with the caveat that if new infections rise to over 50 per 100,000 in any particular state, then citizens of that state must return to a stricter lockdown once again.
• In most places, museums/zoos/botanical gardens can reopen on May 11^th.
• Most shops and stores of all sizes can now be open. Masks must be worn.
• Biergartens and outdoor restaurants can reopen in Bavaria as of May 18^th. Damn right!
• Indoor restaurants can reopen a week after that.
• Some states are allowing hotels and Air B&Bs to open up around May 18^th, while others are waiting until the end of the month.
• Students will slowly return to school with 4^th and 11^th grade coming back on May 11^th, then some others coming back on the 18^th. For my students – grades 7-10 – there is of yet no timetable, but people are guessing they’ll come back early June.

My plan is to hit some museums next week and over the weekend, then I plan to do a nightly biergarten the week after that. I’ve been waiting too long for this. Biergartens, you better be ready for me!!! We have a 4-day weekend toward the end of the month, so I’m most definitely going to figure out which states are open for business regarding overnight stays. As it stands, I’m eyeballing the Rhine River and Black Forest regions. Both, it appears, are allowing some type of overnight stay that weekend.

With all of these plans, I intend to be very safe. I’m wearing my mask as we speak, I have a giant bottle of hand sanitizer in my backpack, and I’m washing my hands every chance I get. I’m also training myself not to touch my face, which isn’t always easy. Suddenly I’ll find my face resting in my hand as I’m looking out the train window, only then to reflexively sit up straight and curse myself out a little inside. With the exception of three high fives that I can remember, I haven’t touched another human being intentionally in over seven weeks. I did hug a tree the other day.

It’s a relief to have certain elements of the lockdown begin to be relaxed, but at the same time I have to admit I do worry a little about being too cavalier about the entire situation. I feel like the odds are in my favor that, if I’m safe, I’ll be fine. These words better not come back to haunt me, but Germany these days is seeing new daily infections consistently below 1,000 per day for the entire country. In a nation of 83 million, I’d say the numbers are on my side.

So, back to Stuttgart yesterday… One of the things I did was to take a train a few stops out of town and check out the Weinwanderweg. This is their local “wine trail.” It was awesome, and it’s hard to believe it exists just a few kilometers outside the city. Well-marked signs led me up through the town of Obertürkheim and into the steep vine-covered hillside. The views were spectacular, and the vineyards were everywhere. In the valley below me ran the Neckar River, and on its shores the city of Stuttgart. But up in the hills I felt a million miles away. People worked the vines, and others toiled away in adjacent garden plots. Some families sat down to lunch outside of their little vacation shacks.

It was beautiful, and it reminded me of a hike Tricia, Donna, Nathan and I took many, many years in the Cinque Terre region of Italy. The only negative part of it was that everything was still closed – the wine shops, the wine bars, restaurants, a monument on top of one of the hills. So, while I was enjoying a picnic in the shade at one point, I was forced to simply imagine a cold glass of Riesling in my hand. Oh well, maybe next time.

I'm going to wrap up this post abruptly, since I didn't get a chance to finish it up properly at the end of the day Sunday.

To make a long day very, very short... my time in Regensburg on Sunday was amazing. I had a fantastic day that including a beer by the river, riding my bike on both banks of the Danube, taking in the green fields of the Danube River valley, visiting the monument "Walhalla," built by Bavarian Kind Ludwig I, and enjoying a pizza and another beer back in Regensburg before getting back onto the train. Planning another couple of adventures this weekend!