This morning we joined Ute, and briefly Egon too, for breakfast and added to our chalkboard of German / English words.
After breakfast we had been invited to see Miranda again as her son Joachim was back in Zweenfurth. Joachim now lives in West Germany and was visiting Zweenfurth for a short time.
We spent most of our time chatting with Joachim and we also joined by Joachim's father, and briefly his nephew Stephan. Miranda gave us a dozen Zweenfurth eggs for us to take with us back to Berlin.
Joachim is the family historian and has been compiling and maintaining a family tree for quite some time. We first saw the family tree (which is on a big board) in 1998 when we first visited Zweenfurth. Since then there's been quite a few additions.
Joachim had visited Australia in 2000 and he fondly shared his photos and memories with us.
When we had seen Miranda yesterday she said we could see my Grandmothers childhood friend Inge today. Inge is not well, physically and mentally incapacitated. Joachim accompanied us to Inges house which is a short walk away.
Miranda had obtained the key to Inge's house from her carer (I think), and we let ourselves in. Nordine and I found the experience quite confronting. Inge was laying in her former living room on a hospital bed, hair completely white, motionless and just a radio for company.
We stood side by side with Joachim several metres from the bed as Joachim softly spoke to Inge. He was announcing that people were there and was she awake. Inge slowly awoke and slightly turned her head but was so vacant. I crouched to speak to her, said who I was, what family I belonged too. Her eyes brightened slightly and she tried to speak. I couldn't understand her and Joachim asked her to repeat what she said. Joachim said she said that I 'looked like a Hellmuth'. I asked if she remembered me, and Joachim repeated but we both could not understand her response. There was not much we could do so I held her hand and kissed her good-bye.
We felt so sad for this situation and her being so alone in her house. We think a carer comes twice a day, but this is not much of a life anymore. For some reason this scene we witnessed reminded me of the film version of Great Expectations and the demise of Miss Haversham. Sad.
We fondly remember the few days we spent with her and her late partner Erich when we first visited Zweenfurth in 1998. We stayed in this house and remember Erich breaking his birdhouse when he was trying to show it to us and Inge mischeviously getting all the alcohol in the house out for us to try.
Joachim escorted us back to Ute and Jorgs house, where we packed up our things, had a light lunch with Ute, Jorg, Hans, Anna and her daughter, spent some final minutes alone with Egon, before we were farewelled - with a jar of honey of course!
As we left Zweenfurth is started to rain very heavily. On the autohan the conditions were so wet, visibility was bad and there seemed so much potential for accidents. The German drivers are used to these conditions and we had a accident free hour long drive to Dresden.
In Dresden we parked in the Alt Market car park and went for a walk. The rain had thankfully stopped now but there were big puddles everywhere and Barney got himself quite wet. We only planned to visit the old town but walked the wrong way at first. This took us to a modern'ish mall which in the wet conditions felt quite soulless and was not what I was expecting from Dresden. We walked up this mall to the Hauptbahnhof and several city map placards made it clear we had walked the wrong way. This area, while good for shopping was not what we had come to see and was a mismatch of new buildings and some old communist era ugly buildings.
Heading back to the old town, which like many German cities had been reconstructed after heavy damage sustained during WWII. Here in the old town was what we had been expecting, the beautiful buildings, the Elbe river and the Fruenkirche.
We really didn't spend much time here once we had walked through the old town. Our hearts were already in Berlin and we just wanted to go home. Before leaving I went inside the Frauenkirche - this was busy with a sermon taking place and lots of people seeing what was going on. When you enter there is a sign which clearly indicates 'no photos' yet people were still taking photos and using their flashes. So disrespectful. At least be sneaky like me and turn the flash off!
We left Dresden eager to get back to Berlin. We had over two hours drive ahead of us and this was mostly rain and traffic jam free.
Once we got into the Berlin city ring a sign labelled 'Berlin' appeared on the freeway announcing we had driven into Berlin territory - I got happy goosebumps to be back.
Our route back into the city centre took us through some streets that we were unfamiliar with, but once we saw the sign pointing to 'Friedrichshain' we were back.
We are so happy to be back home.
After breakfast we had been invited to see Miranda again as her son Joachim was back in Zweenfurth. Joachim now lives in West Germany and was visiting Zweenfurth for a short time.
We spent most of our time chatting with Joachim and we also joined by Joachim's father, and briefly his nephew Stephan. Miranda gave us a dozen Zweenfurth eggs for us to take with us back to Berlin.
Joachim is the family historian and has been compiling and maintaining a family tree for quite some time. We first saw the family tree (which is on a big board) in 1998 when we first visited Zweenfurth. Since then there's been quite a few additions.
Joachim had visited Australia in 2000 and he fondly shared his photos and memories with us.
When we had seen Miranda yesterday she said we could see my Grandmothers childhood friend Inge today. Inge is not well, physically and mentally incapacitated. Joachim accompanied us to Inges house which is a short walk away.
Miranda had obtained the key to Inge's house from her carer (I think), and we let ourselves in. Nordine and I found the experience quite confronting. Inge was laying in her former living room on a hospital bed, hair completely white, motionless and just a radio for company.
We stood side by side with Joachim several metres from the bed as Joachim softly spoke to Inge. He was announcing that people were there and was she awake. Inge slowly awoke and slightly turned her head but was so vacant. I crouched to speak to her, said who I was, what family I belonged too. Her eyes brightened slightly and she tried to speak. I couldn't understand her and Joachim asked her to repeat what she said. Joachim said she said that I 'looked like a Hellmuth'. I asked if she remembered me, and Joachim repeated but we both could not understand her response. There was not much we could do so I held her hand and kissed her good-bye.
We felt so sad for this situation and her being so alone in her house. We think a carer comes twice a day, but this is not much of a life anymore. For some reason this scene we witnessed reminded me of the film version of Great Expectations and the demise of Miss Haversham. Sad.
We fondly remember the few days we spent with her and her late partner Erich when we first visited Zweenfurth in 1998. We stayed in this house and remember Erich breaking his birdhouse when he was trying to show it to us and Inge mischeviously getting all the alcohol in the house out for us to try.
Joachim escorted us back to Ute and Jorgs house, where we packed up our things, had a light lunch with Ute, Jorg, Hans, Anna and her daughter, spent some final minutes alone with Egon, before we were farewelled - with a jar of honey of course!
As we left Zweenfurth is started to rain very heavily. On the autohan the conditions were so wet, visibility was bad and there seemed so much potential for accidents. The German drivers are used to these conditions and we had a accident free hour long drive to Dresden.
In Dresden we parked in the Alt Market car park and went for a walk. The rain had thankfully stopped now but there were big puddles everywhere and Barney got himself quite wet. We only planned to visit the old town but walked the wrong way at first. This took us to a modern'ish mall which in the wet conditions felt quite soulless and was not what I was expecting from Dresden. We walked up this mall to the Hauptbahnhof and several city map placards made it clear we had walked the wrong way. This area, while good for shopping was not what we had come to see and was a mismatch of new buildings and some old communist era ugly buildings.
Heading back to the old town, which like many German cities had been reconstructed after heavy damage sustained during WWII. Here in the old town was what we had been expecting, the beautiful buildings, the Elbe river and the Fruenkirche.
We really didn't spend much time here once we had walked through the old town. Our hearts were already in Berlin and we just wanted to go home. Before leaving I went inside the Frauenkirche - this was busy with a sermon taking place and lots of people seeing what was going on. When you enter there is a sign which clearly indicates 'no photos' yet people were still taking photos and using their flashes. So disrespectful. At least be sneaky like me and turn the flash off!
We left Dresden eager to get back to Berlin. We had over two hours drive ahead of us and this was mostly rain and traffic jam free.
Once we got into the Berlin city ring a sign labelled 'Berlin' appeared on the freeway announcing we had driven into Berlin territory - I got happy goosebumps to be back.
Our route back into the city centre took us through some streets that we were unfamiliar with, but once we saw the sign pointing to 'Friedrichshain' we were back.
We are so happy to be back home.
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