CELLE
On Tuesday Heinrich and Elke went to nearby Celle, he to a medical appointment, she to the dentist, and I went along to walk around and to try and get an attachment that would let me plug my coffee warmer into German electrical outlets so that I can sit for hours with a hot cup of coffee, the one device besides my iPad that I take on a trip. The problem is that, for safety reasons probably, the German double round prongs fit into an inch deep well that holds the plug securely. My device has the same two round German prongs but they extend out of a flat surface which won’t fit into the well. So not only are there two main electric systems, the European 220 and the American 110 but they, in different countries, have different prong sockets. So the upshot of this is that even a store in Celle that has everything electrical, Media Mart, doesn’t have a way of attaching my little transformer and I will have to get through the next week without a coffee warmer, which hardly seems worth writing about. It is just one more way in which cultures don’t interface well with each other.
Another way is that when I tried on line to order a few more Mixtiles, well printed photographs that stick without damage on a wall, starting on the American Mixtile site the process converted half way through to a German Mixtile site as a computer recognized that I am in Germany and the size of the Mixtiles shifted from inches to centimeters which means there is about a quarter of an inch difference between the American Mixtiles and the German Mixtiles. I am afraid that if I try to later mix Mixtiles they will look odd. The deadline for 62% discount sale was today, I was finally ready, and then gave up.
But in wandering around Celle I got to see Celle again, where I have been many times and where my wife, Kathe, was born. It is a beautiful town of fachwerk timbered houses and a large white moated castle where Sophie gave birth to the line of kings, the Georges, who later became kings of both England and Hanover, and finally England, if I’ve got things straight. She was later unfaithful to her husband and locked up for life but her kids went on to become kings of England and for that reason Celle wasn’t bombed by the British or anyone else during World War 2, while Hannover and other big towns were flattened. That is the reason that many buildings, now tourist shops, are outwardly the same as they were in the 1500’s. So here are a few photographs of Celle.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 