JUNE 3, TUESDAY

CELLE

Today was a relaxed day. I walked around Celle twice, first to buy a red cuckoo clock and the second time to visit Schweine Schulze to have an Eisbein, a delicious fat enclosed boiled leg of pig with sauerkraut and bratkartoffel (fried potatoes).

I bought the bright red cuckoo clock with a cuckoo that pops out and cuckoos four times each hour. I bought it because 60 years ago when I was in the army in Germany I bought a wooden handmade cuckoo clock which represented old traditional Germany. But this sleek red cuckoo clock represents the new modern Germany. I am going to put them up side by side in my house.

Since the month in Morocco a couple of years ago I have been buying something on trips to remind me of that place. Since I travel with just a backpack and carry-on bag I can’t bring that much back. I’ve learned over the years that the easiest things to bring back from a trip that have the most impact are textiles, not cuckoo clocks. Pillow cases (without pillows), table cloths, bed spreads, wall hangings, thin rugs are fairly easy to bring back. On the way back you can pay for a checked bag if necessary. So, since I have a free checked bag on this trip, I’ve been looking for something to bring back from Kathe’s town and have settled on the cuckoo clock, some small, ceramic, very German, houses with little lights inside and three pillowcases.

Then at lunch, when the family was out riding bicycles, I went to Schweine Schulze, which calls itself the unofficial town hall of Celle, for Eisbein, greasy leg of a pig dripping with fat. It was delicious.

This was followed by walking around town again and then in the evening all of us walking up to the Brauner Hirsch (Brown Deer) where we stayed along with Kathe, my wife, visited constantly by Volker, Kathe’s brother. Here we had a good meal, reminisced and then walked back to our apartments in Celle.