Roads to Safe Places

When Crocky and I sent our notice to our landlord on Saturday we saw that there was a market in Uelzen. They had basically turned the entire town centre into one market place, even though there is a perfectly good square in front of the town hall which would have served the same purpose. When I was little my grandparents and my mother used to go to a market in Hamburg every Saturday, so I still have a soft spot for markets, even though they tend to be too full for my taste. I loved walking across the market and shopping for some fresh groceries with Crocky, looking at all the colourful stalls full of delicious fresh food. Since there was a shower right before we left all the groceries were covered in little drops and looked as though they were straight out of an ad. I wish I'd have thought to take my camera, I'd been able to spam my friends list with some pictures, on the other hand, maybe it's better that I didn't. With several kilos of rhubarb, apples, and, most importantly, strawberries we headed home and made some fruit salad and rhubarb pudding. I think I need a better recipe for that one. The one I pulled from the internet was too sweet and altogether not tasty at all.

It's a funny feeling, having handed in our notice before actually having a new flat, but we're resolved not to spend another winter in this damp place. Also, most of the flats advertised in the local papers and on the internet around here tended to be vacant as soon as they appeared online, so it should be possible to find something during our three months notice. Hopefully. We're already looking, but so far, most of the flats were either too expensive, taken, or the landlords didn't come back to us. Looks like a lot of calls will have to be made next week...

Part 1.

What could be more interesting than looking at scores of pictures of a town with all of 35k inhabitants? Especially since there is little that is actually worth the visit in Uelzen unless you are a rabid Friedensreich Hundertwasser fan (and there aren't that many of those out there). I do love the little chapels that are there, though, and the old buildings. Since not many things were destroyed in the wars, there are still many buildings which are several hundred years old, old churches, old headstones, old schools.



It's a shame that it was closed, I would have liked to take a peek inside and see more than I could through the barred windows.



I love the Ratsteich. I think that one day I'll try to get myself to go to one of the cafés on the banks, it must be great, especially in the evening.



There are really interesting headstones around the church, most of them of clergy and their families, and some of them of city notables. Especially the ones from the seventeenth century are fascinating.











I LOVE that school. It's SO beautiful - especially compared to my school, which was an ugly, uniform building from the seventies that looked more or less exactly like the four other grammar schools in cycling distance which were also a product of the suburban flight in the seventies. Nothing compared to this pretty building.

Land unter [lant 'ʔʊntə] is an expression used to describe flooded grassland - well, the fact that the grassland is flooded, really.

Due to severe rains, every river, stream, lake, or puddle between Uelzen and Hamburg has grown to enormous size during the last couple of weeks. It looks as though the entire northern German lowlands are under water and I wonder what the farmers are doing with their fields now that they are so swamped.



( Take a train ride with me )