Saturday (in the Park)

What a good day. Ignoring the fact that my housemates came home late last night and then kept me awake for about an hour in the middle of the night, the day itself was very good.
Bernhard invited me to visit the Germanisches National Museum/Germanic National Museum with him and I gladly accepted. As the tagline for the museum says, “Alle Zeiten. Alle Sinne./All times. All meanings.” In case you misunderstand the name of the museum, it is a museum for the history of Germania and not necessarily Germany itself. And it's not a museum about German Nationalism either.
We spent a lot of time looking through the old history and artifacts of Germania. It was like looking through my Ancient History textbook again with all the maps showing which tribes lived in which regions at different points in time. I quite enjoyed looking at the Neolithic and Bronze Age objects because they are so elegant in their simplicity. It got me thinking that if a majority of the world's human population got obliterated, then civilization would probably actually be in a dumbfounded state. The majority of human society's have turned to the specializing of skills, so if we lose a good chunk of people, then we have lost a whole bunch of goods and services. Sure, we might still have the blueprints and directions on how to do everything, but who says that the remaining people will understand it all? Just like in those 'washed away on a deserted island' movies, we would be left weaving raw materials and using pins to keep our clothes together. As I stood in the museum looking at those chunks of roughly etched flint/chert from 600,000 years ago, I felt a little overwhelmed at how complex things have become.
The museum is located within the walled portion of the city! This was my second 'ancient walled in city' experience; the first being Jerusalem. We walked through the main pedestrian shopping center and I was yet again amazed at how many people were out and about in the 40 degree weather. I think Americans are weak when it comes to withstanding cold temperatures. Germans on the other hand sit outside at Cafes drinking coffee and walk around town with ice cream cones in their hands! We passed a fountain sculpture that was quite astounding. Bernhard mentioned the name Hieronymous Bosch and I think he was saying that the sculpture was either made by Bosch or was made in the image of Bosch's work because I think Bosch was a painter, not a sculptor, but please correct me if I am wrong. I took a few photos so that you could share in my open-jawed, astonished facial expression
Bernhard suggested I not mention this next matter, but I figure, you know it exists, so why not put it out there as a matter of observed culture. We wanted to walk along the inside of the wall before we exited to his car and...we found the red light district! There were approximately 10 buildings all in a row dedicated to this line of business. The first woman I saw was an older woman leaning on the open window ledge showing off her cleavage (in the geological sense, of course), but otherwise appearing sufficiently clad. The next woman I saw was also older but she was standing in the entry doorway to her building in a skirt much too short for someone her age. And then we got to the young women who were sitting in their buildings' windows dressed in underwear. I preferred to think of their attire as 'bikini style' bathing suites. Even though we did accidentally come upon it, I thought that the location of this red light district was nicely hidden, being there was only the ancient wall on the opposite side of the street. Next time I visit Nurnberg and want to see more of the wall, I will choose a different section. But, I wonder what else I might stumble upon that they are hiding against the wall...
When we returned to Erlangen, I decided to find the Schlossgarten that the map said should be in the region of the old city, which is the new central shopping district. The name Schlossgarten translates to “castle garden”, but in modern day it is basically a city park. The University of Erlangen-Nurnberg administrative offices are currently located in the castle. I bought some lunch at a bakery, which consisted of a typical German sandwich (Kaiser roll, cucumber, tomato, some sort of cheese, and some sort of meat), a big salty pretzel (I bought a package of 3 from the discount bin, but still soooo good), and a carbonated water, then went around the corner to find a place to sit in the Schlossgarten.
My lunch was delicious and the local entertainment was great. Many of the social facets of Erlangen were represented in the park on this cool, sunny afternoon. I took photos of the various societal representatives. My attention was first brought to the large group of punk youths dressed in black clothing, smoking, drinking beer, and privilege to having a female friend who can wear short shorts on a cold day! In contrast to this punk group, I saw the group of teens that I figure are the “cool kids” who smoked and drank, but had an appearance and manner which spoke more to mainstream “coolness” (How does one explain “cool kids”? They just are “cool” somehow.) In addition to the groups of freedom seeking youths, there were parents playing with children, young adult couples sitting close on benches and in love, dogs romping with their owners, and then the loners either working on projects on computers or reading. The only representative that I am sorry I missed photographing was a female musician, but she kept looking around and I didn't want to be awkward. In addition to missing the musician, I also missed a female duo chatting and a male duo chatting, but I am not so sorry about missing those representatives.
It's easy to get caught up thinking that this is some sort of amazing city where vast numbers of people are drawn to socialize in the park simply because they love the park. I think that there is more reasoning behind so many people concentrating in this one place. For one thing, most of Erlangen's residents live in apartments or homes without any yard space. Another thing is that there are only a few parks within the city. So, without private lawn space and only a few parks to choose from, people end up here de facto if they want to stroll on something other than a cramped sidewalk along a busy street.