Day 43 - Ulm

Note to Marjan: I replied to your post on Day 41.

Well, it was time to get the truck out of Dodge, so I hopped a train to Ulm. There wasn't a huge amount to see in Ulm, so I'll skip the bullet point format for this update. Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein. There is a plaque and a statue and a few buildings named after him, but that's about it. Still, much of Ulm is cobblestone streets and really old houses, so it's probably pretty similar to how it was when Al was there. They also have a bread museum. I was curious about what a bread museum might contain, but standing in the lobby, looking at a couple lame glass sculptures and paintings of bread, I thought better of it. No, the highlight of Ulm was definitely its cathedral... THE TALLEST ON EARTH!!! Oh yeah. It's tall allright. 160 meters, and you get to climb 143 of them via three tiny spiral staircases. I like to think my hiking is keeping me in decent shape, but taking the steps two at a time, like I normally do, was not happening. The cathedral is called Ulmer Münster in german, so I now call it the Ulmer Monster. Even though it was a pretty cloudy day, the view was really impressive. It made me wonder at the souls who were brave enough to work on it near the top. It gets pretty windy at that altitude. If it gets really clear, I might have to go again. :)

That's most of my day. After that I bought some groceries and went back to the hostel. They supply hot water, dishes, and utensils, so I've been eating instant soup along with bread so heavy it doesn't resemble bread so much as meatloaf. The array of bread choices here really is bewildering. I should see if the Lonely Planet Germany has any good suggestions. It certainly had enough suggestions for Berlin. There are five museums I am very curious about and... aw hell. I've got time. Let's list them all (in the order of my interest).

1. Ethnology Museum. Basically it's a lot of art from cultures I don't get to visit on this trip. It has art from Africa, South America (maybe including everyone's favorite Olmec god, Ixtapalapaqetl), South Seas and India.
2. Bauhaus Archive. The Bauhaus school of the early twentieth century supposedly defined much of what we consider "modern architecture". I'm very curious to see what that means. And if it's really cool, I'll take a day trip to Dessau, where some of their buildings can be moved through, as opposed to just seen in sketches and models.
3. Brohan Museum. This explores the art of furniture and home decoration. I saw some cool Art Nouveau stuff in D'Orsay in Paris and am curious to see more funky furnishings.
4. Egyptian Museum. I've seen a lot of Egyptian stuff on this trip. This museum should help put it into context as it has a bunch of different displays about different aspects of early Egyptian life.
5. Pergamon. Huge museum featuring more fabulous babylonian, islaamic, middle easter, greek, and roman art. The book said to take multiple days, but I'm guessing one will be enough for me at this point.

So that's the top five. I wrote down eight others, just in case I get bored. And I've only started to look into daytrips. And to think I didn't even have Berlin on my original itenerary. :P

As a final note, I have my address for the hostel I'll be at in Berlin. Given that I won't be leaving Berlin for more than ten days from now, it should be safe to mail me postcards, memory cards, etc.

John's Cozy Little Oriental Hostel Berlin
Waldenser Str. 30
10551 Berlin-Mitte-Tiergarten-Moabit